282 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



THE APIARY FROM WHICH THE BEES STING( ?) THE GRAPES. 



My apiary is in the tenter of a town — Twin Grove — having a population of 40. I have never had anv 

 trouble with the neighbors with the exception of one man at the far end of the town who complains of the 

 bees bothering his grapes. He tries to make out that the bees sting the grapes, and then take out the sweet. 



James D. Benson, Juda, Wis. 



HONEY PRODUCTION AS A BUSINESS IN THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS, 



AS SEEN BY A MALIHINI 



BY LESLIE BUER 



Beekeepers sometimes move from one lo- 

 cation to another; and while they do not 

 move very often, yet they are always talk- 

 ing about moving. In fact, I do not re- 

 member any beekeeper with whom I am well 

 acquainted but has expressed the idea that 

 he thought that, if he were in some other 

 and distant location, he could make more 

 out of his bees. For the benefit of those 

 who want to move from their present loca- 

 tion to some distant land, I am going to 

 describe the conditions here at the Paradise 

 of the Pacific, the Hawaiian Islands. 



The Hawaiian Islands are a territory of 

 the United States, within the tropics, and 

 at a distance of over 2000 miles from Cal- 

 ifornia. There is no foul brood nor any 

 other disease to be cont-ended with, nor win- 

 ter losses. The beekeepers do but very little 

 of the actual work themselves. They liire 

 Japanese to do it for them, and the Japan- 

 ese make good help, and work at very low 

 wages. The principal honey-plant is the 

 algaroba, and there is plenty of it. 



Now, all those who want to come to Hon- 

 olulu, hold up your hands. Well, I see my 

 old friend Summerford, Hickox — yes, and 

 there is Claude Hill, but he says that his 



better half says he had better stay in Ohio, 

 and several others. 



Now that I have you fellows hooked, I 

 will tell you some more about the Hawaiian 

 Islands: First, that while the country in 

 and about Honolulu is good bee country, it 

 is overstocked. At the present time there 

 are twice as many colonies as there should 

 be. The apiaries are owned by Japanese, 

 and they have an aj^iary just about every 

 place where they can put one. If you desire 

 to work outside of Honolulu, you are in 

 worse luck. Everything here is big corpo- 

 rations, and that applies to honey produc- 

 tion. One company has 5500 colonies, and 

 there are others almost as large. Those 

 corporations control all the good locations, 

 and they have bees on them. But then, I 

 know that some of you fellows, if you were 

 here, would get an apiary or so located 

 somewhere, so I will tell you what other 

 troubles you would meet. So here is the 

 second batch of difficulties : Ants are a pest, 

 so that special hive-stands have to be con- 

 structed. These stands are of two parts — 

 an upper part and a lower one, the upper 

 section being placed upon iron supports, 

 and the supports being covered with oil so 



