17 



and since then the business has steadily grown and gone into 

 nearly every field. Some territory is still open; other sections 

 are only half stocked, but the advantage of closeness to market 

 and business centers has caused the leeward side of the Island 

 of Oahu to be severely overstocked, and several apiaries suffer 

 from competition. 



The present yearly output is about one thousand tons of 

 honey and twenty-five tons of wax, from approximately twen- 

 ty thousand colonies. About four-fifths of the total number of 

 hives are owned and controlled by four beekeeping corpora- 

 tions ; the remaining colonies are scattered among small 

 apiaries. Most of the corporation-owned apiaries are man- 

 aged by an experienced white beekeeper, but practically all 

 the manual labor is performed by Japanese, who, as a rule, 

 show great proficiency in handling bees, and who almost alone 

 are capable of the arduous work. The smaller apiaries are 

 usually conducted without help and as a rule are rather poorly 

 kept, but where the Japanese can be profitably used in the 

 business they are usually employed for the manipulation. 

 Some Japanese^ have become very skilful at queen-rearing. 

 There is only one company (The Garden Island) engaged 

 -in commercial queen-rearing. 



The source of Hawaiian honeys and the character of the 

 forage will be rather surprising to anyone unacquainted with 

 the Islands. More than half the honey produced here is of 

 the honeydew type, running from light amber to dark brown, 

 according to the degree of admixture of honeydew with the 

 floral nectar, and especially characterized by the molasses-like 

 taste and the darker color. The principal forage plant is un- 

 questionably the "kiawe" or algaroba, as indicated by the 

 heavy crop produced at the time of "kiawe" bloom. Many 

 native and introduced trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants, 

 notably lantana, guava, oi, ilima, koa, ohia, eucalyptus, etc., 

 produce more or less of the honey, but the principal supply 

 comes from the source above mentioned. 



While the tropical conditions' present so many features 

 favorable to beekeeping there is one feature which is decidedly 

 adverse, namely, insect pests. Hawaii fortunately has no con- 

 tagious brood diseases, and there exists a hearty co-operation 

 among the beekeepers to prevent the introduction of any- The 

 insects, however, are often extremely difficult to deal with, 

 especially where beekeeping is practised on a large scale, 

 although a large part of the losses are more directly due to 

 carelessness and inattention. The wax moth and ants are the 

 worst foes of the beekeeper, but cockroaches also get away 



