1114 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 1 



have all honey-bees grouped under Megapis, 

 Apis, and Micrapis. 

 Washington, D. C., Sept. 20, 1904. 



TROPICAL NOTES. 



The Possibilities of Bee-keeping in the Islands. 



BY W. K. MORRISON. 



Fine brass wire is best for wiring frames 

 in the tropics; but it is a trouble to get it 

 fine enough from local hardware firms. 



In many parts of the West Indies the 

 honey season can be lengthened out by car- 

 rying the bees to the mountains. The time 

 to carry them is when the lowlands have be- 

 come parched during the dry season. It 

 rains more in the mountains. The combs 

 must be wired for transport. 



Alfalfa has been grown in the island of 

 Grenada as an experiment for several years; 

 and Mr. Jordan, the present agricultural in- 

 structor, has succeeded in growing it in 

 Montserrat. There is a dry arid portion of 

 Jamaica where it would probably grow well 

 if irrigated. Alfalfa grows in immense 

 fields around Bogota, the capital of Colom- 

 bia. 



Cypress is by long odds the superior of 

 white pine for tropical use. Pine will last a 

 long while if it is carefully protected from 

 the rain, and kept up off from the ground. 

 Hot melted beeswax brushed on a roof-board 

 is a great protection. Boots may be ren- 

 dered almost impervious to moisture if the 

 seams are brushed with hot beeswax. Har- 

 ness-dressing in rainy countries should con- 

 tain a considerable amount of beeswax or it 

 is of but little use. 



For obvious reasons frozen honey is not 

 popular in these latitudes, and it does not 

 matter to us how it is cut. But good con- 

 fectionery can be made with honey as a 

 base; and where chocolate grows on the 

 trees it ought to be easy to make a good 

 confection. 



Two Ideal supers with shallow extracting- 

 frames and a zinc honey-board in between 

 make a splendid wax-producing hive; and if 

 the colony is fed a little in times of scarcity 

 it is wonderful the amount of wax one colo- 

 ny can produce fixed up in this way. Don't 

 feed too fast. 



In the southern parts of South America 

 are immense areas covered with the car- 

 doon, a giant thistle which is a great bee- 

 plant. It grows as tall as a man on horse- 

 back, and it is a difficult proposition to ride 

 through. The cardoon is an excellent veg- 

 etable, but the Southerners have too much 

 of it. 



There are some ideal locations for bees in 

 the Bahamas; but life on a coral island is 

 " awfully " lonely, and yet it was there that 

 Columbus first set his foot in the new world. 

 Probably the islands were more populous 

 then than now. Lippia, Lantayia, century 

 plant, and mangrove are some of the lead- 

 ing honey-plants. 



Panama is all right for American bee- 



keepers, provided they don't like whisky, 

 gin, or schnapps. The best place is the city 

 of Panama. It is not much of a place for 

 ladies. 



Beeswax is selling at $35 to $37 per 112 

 lbs. in London. This means nearly $750 for 

 a ton of beeswax, and opens up a wonderful 

 vista to tropical bee-masters who understand 

 wax-production. 



Some late shipments of logwood honey 

 brought $9.00 per cwt. in London. This is a 

 fair price, but no more than the worth of 

 the article. The chief competitors are al- 

 falfa honey from Chili, and sage honey from 

 California. The latter can get a dollar more. 



Barbados may yet become a honey coun- 

 try, as the cultivation of cotton is rapidly 

 extending. Barbados is probably the clean- 

 est-cultivated country on the whole globe. 

 Even on the roadside not a weed is seen. 

 Anybody trying to introduce sweet clover 

 into Barbados would fail. It would be pull- 

 ed out by the roots at once and fed to the 

 goats. 



Increase is easy in warm latitudes— feed 

 sugar syrup, and the bees will swarm right 

 along; the same if you want queens— just 

 feed— they'll come. 



There are no tame bees in Cayenne, French 

 Guiana, as yet. It is a grand country; and 

 surely if the French are worth their salt 

 they ought to see about this at once. If 

 they didn't pull the buds of the clove-trees 

 they could have clove honey. An American 

 bee-keeper would beheve himself in heaven 

 if he were suddenly transported to the banks 

 of the Oyapok. It is beautiful beyond com- 

 pare, and no priority rights to be considered 

 either. 



. The writer can indorse Mr. Woodward's 

 views of West-Indian apiculture to the let- 

 ter. Nothing will destroy the chances of 

 the tropical honey industry quicker than the 

 employment of cheap labor. It means bad 

 results in every way. It requires skilled in- 

 telligent labor here as well as in Ohio. The 

 only place to employ cheap labor is in wheel- 

 ing the hand barrow and turning the crank 

 of the extractor. Bee-keeping is admirably 

 suited to white-skinned folks in the tropics 

 for several reasons. 



If there is danger of a hurricane, nail on 

 your bottoms and tops, and set the hives on 

 the ground. The writer did this in a hurri- 

 cane, and came through it without the loss 

 of a colony. 



It is a pity some one does not import Apis 

 Indica to these parts. It ought to succeed 

 admirably in the West Indies. It is a small- 

 er bee than ours, and the frames would re- 

 quire closer spacing. Regular worker foun- 

 dation is converted into drone comb. 



Some bee-keepers object to the shortened 

 top-bai'. They should drive the staples into 

 the top-bar if it is too short for their use. 



A small glue-pot, some wax, and a camel- 

 hair brush are very nice to have when fast- 

 ening foundation into shallow frames. Some 

 people don't know this, and make sticks to 

 wedge it in. Wax holds foundation better 

 than wedges. 



