GUAM AGEICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 21 



ferring by this method requires the construction of a bee-tight box 

 pro^aded A\ath a door, or removable end, sufficiently large to permit the 

 introduction of the box hive from which the colony is to be trans- 

 ferred. In one end of this box a Porter bee escape is arranged, and 

 after the box hive has been introduced, a Langstroth hive M^th a 

 nucleus and a fertile laying queen is placed Avdth its entrance not 

 farther distant than a few inches from the bee escape. The bees from 

 the box hive pass out through the bee escape, but being imable to 

 return through it they find their way into the decoy hive near by. 



The box hives in use in Guam are of widely different sizes and styles, 

 as almost any available empty box that may be conveniently ob- 

 tained when needed is used as a hive. Many of these boxes are so 

 loosely constructed that cracks large enough to serve as beeways are 

 found between the boards on all sides, and the cover is generally 

 nailed fast to the box. The transfer of a colony of bees from a box 

 hive of this class is very unsatisfactory unless some method of induc- 

 ing or forcing the bees to abandon the old hive and take possession of 

 the new one is practiced. The method employed at this station is 

 necessarily slow, requiring a month or more in which to transfer a 

 colony, but there are conditions under which the loss of a little time is 

 no great disadvantage, and under such conditions the above method 

 renders possible the transfer and utilization of specially strong and 

 valuable colonies which would be of little value in their original box 

 hive. 



The colonies in the station apiary have shown unusually rapid 

 increase. On December 1, 1912, the station had but 2 good, strong 

 colonies, and at the close of the fiscal year, just 7 months later, this 

 number had increased to 15 good colonies. 



SOME HONEY PLANTS OF GUAM. 



Since the first colony of honeybees was obtained by this station in 

 October, 1911, observations were made of some of the flowers from 

 which honey was being collected. The coconut palm is one of the 

 principal honey-producing plants of the island. Under favorable 

 conditions this palm flowers almost continuously, and during the dry 

 season when few other honey-producing plants are in bloom it fur- 

 nishes practically all the honey gathered by the bees. Bees also fre- 

 quent open bamboo joints in which tuba, the sap of the coconut palm, 

 is being collected, and are able to extract a certain amount of saccharin 

 matter from this liquid wliich is used in comparatively large quan- 

 tities as a beverage and in the preparation of various products such 

 as su'up, sugar, vinegar, and alcohol. The "cadena de amor" or chain 

 of love vine (Antigonon leptopus), a beautiful flowering vine, is a 

 splendid honey plant, but in Guam its occurrence is not sufiicieutiy 



