MARCH 15, 1916 



281 



algaroba thicket 

 from the street. 



names as Nimaiui, Po- 

 nohau, Kahauki, Kai- 

 miku, Kahauiki, etc., 

 being just ordinary 

 appellations. On the 

 pai'ticular day in ques- 

 tion I was wandering 

 about the city with the 

 sole purpose in mind 

 of seeing just how 

 weird a name I could 

 find that had been 

 tacked on a street. As 

 I was going down 

 Kinau Street, noting 

 the varied vegetation 

 that almost hid the 

 houses from view, and 

 wondering if the par- 

 ticular block I was on 

 would ever end, I dis- 

 covered an apiary of 

 some fifty colonies or 

 so. The hives were 

 huddled together in an 

 some fifty feet or so 

 On my discoveiy of the apiary I considered 

 that Kinau Street was a good place to stop, 

 so I quit my quest of strange names. I had 

 found the home of Thomas Rewcastle, an 

 Englishman by birth and an American citi- 

 zen by virtue of circumstances. " Lassoed 

 Americans " is the term that the natives 

 of the islands apply to themselves, and it 

 is not a bad term when one considers the 

 manner and circumstances by which the 

 people living in the Hawaiian Islands be- 

 came American citizens. 



Mr. Rewcastle was a mechanic, and came 

 to the islands in 1879. In 1883 he had a 

 desire to own some bees, and purchased two 

 colonies that he discovered. Later on in 

 the same year he caught a stray swarm. By 

 reason of his lack of knowledge of bees he 

 lost the two colonies he had purchased the 

 same year. He tried to buy other bees to 

 replace them, but was unable to do so. As 

 a result he was feeling rather blue. It was 

 when he was in this state of mind that he 

 saw an advertisement by A. I. Root in a 

 newspaper. This advertisement had the 

 same attraction for Mr. Rewcastle that a 

 crippled minnow has to a black bass. Pre- 

 vious to the finding of this advertisement by 

 A. I. Root Mr. Rewcastle had made a lot of 

 inquiries of people in Honolulu for infor- 

 mation pertaining to bees, but had been 

 unable to find any person who was better 

 informed than himself. 



From the time he got in touch with A. I. 

 Root his progress was rapid, and within a 

 few years he built up from his one stray 



Apiary of Thomas Rewcastle, situated in the heart of Honolulu. 



swarm to over 500 colonies. During those 

 early years he secured good crops of honey, 

 at times averaging as high as 350 pounds of 

 honey per colony. The surplus flow, then 

 as now, was from algaroba. All his bees 

 were located in the city of Honolulu, and 

 I have an idea that he may hold the record 

 as having been the largest city beekeeper. 

 In 1895 he had three apiaries. At his res- 

 idence on Kinau Street he had 250 colonies. 

 At the base of Punchbowl, a dead crater 

 some 500 feet high that is in the center of 

 the city, he had 50 colonies. In the south- 

 ern part of the city, about 11/2 miles from 

 his residence, he had 50 more colonies locat- 

 ed; and out near Waikiki Beach he had 

 another apiary of 200 colonies. His honey 

 and wax he shipped to England, and there 

 received a good price for them. One thing 

 that he never had to contend with was bee 

 disease, with the exception of paralysis. He 

 stated that in the year 1888, and that year 

 only, his bees were attacked with paralysis 

 and he lost 50 colonies. 



Mr. Rewcastle is now seventy-four yeai"S 

 of age. Thirty-seven of those years have 

 been spent in Honolulu. At the present 

 time he has disposed of all his bees except 

 his apiary at his residence on Kinau Street, 

 and he is ready to dispose of most of those. 



He stated that in years past he had sold 

 bees to many people, and had done what he 

 could to make practical apiarists out of 

 such people; but they all failed with but 

 one exception, that exception being the 

 Gilbert Brothers. 



For some years past Mr. Rewcastle has 

 been interested in chickens and pigeons, 



