1903 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



539 



MORE ABOUT BEE-KEEPING IN JAMAICA. 



BY GEO. \V. PHILLIPS. 



[Mr. Geo. W. Phillips, the writer of the following 

 article, wa-; born and rai.sed in Jamaica. .\ little less 

 than a year ago he came to the I'liited States and 

 subsequently t-ccepted a position with us. As lonsid- 

 erablc interest has been manifested regarding Jamai- 

 ca I asked him to follow up the article of Mr. .•\lexan- 

 dcr. in our last issue, wiih another one telling some- 

 thing about his own bee-keeping operations on the 

 island, and ot that remarkable honey-plant the log- 

 wood Mr. Phillips owns fOO colonies in two yards, 

 one of which — the smaller one — is shown m the first 

 illus ration. He is at present our head apiarist, hav- 

 ing charge of our bet s in and al>out Medina. In this 

 connection I might state that Mr. Harry Howe, of 

 '• lightning-opetato! " fame, is running "our Cuban 

 vard of otlO colonies. — En.] 



Monster apiaries can be run profitably 

 in Jamaica. During- the log-wood bloom, 

 which comes somewhere between December 

 and ISIarch, 600 colonies or more could eas- 

 ily find pasturage in the same locality; but 

 since the flow of nectar from other sources 

 is not co.rresponding-ly heavy, most of the 

 large bee- men keep but 300 or 400 colonies 

 in each j'ard. 



Too much can not be said of log-wood as a 

 honey-plant. It has always been, and very 

 likely will always remain, the staple hon- 

 ey plant of the island. While the Ameri- 

 can bee-man sees in dismay the forests of 

 basswood yielding to the ax of the wood- 



AUCHENDOON APIAKV. 



Many questions about Jamaica have been 

 fired at me since I came to the States— some 

 of them easilj' answered, and some almost 

 unanswerable— questions of every sort, and 

 upon almost ever}' subject imaginable, and 

 bee-keepers have not been backward in ask- 

 ing their share. For the benefit of the lat- 

 ter, therefore, I write this article, and hope 

 it will be of interest. 



There is probabl3' no place where condi- 

 tions are more favorable for bee-keeping, and 

 where the apiarist can find more real plea- 

 sure in the pursuance of his favorite task, 

 than Jamaica. To begin with, one has no 

 winter and early-spring problem to solve; 

 but pleasant sunshine, fragrant flowers, and 

 booming colonies exist; while in the north- 

 ern country, zero weather and chafi" cush- 

 ions are the order of the dav. 



man, and his prospective harvest from al- 

 falfa nipped in the bud, the Jamaican bee- 

 keeper can know with assurance that, un- 

 less the climatic conditions are extremely 

 trying, the big yields from logwood will 

 continue as the years come and go. 



This pl\oto shows a part of one of our 

 apiaries at a place called " Auchendoon." 

 The trees in the picture are very fine spec- 

 imens of the logwood. There are thousands 

 of acres of the same around ; and when the 

 b'oom is on, and those giant colonies get 

 fairly started, the rush and roar can better 

 be imagined than described. 



In this apiary the ten-frame hive is used 

 exclusively. Had I the chance to start over 

 again I should prefer a larger brood-nest — 

 the ten-frame Jumbo or twelve-frame Lang- 

 stroth, for instance. The long-continued 



