Aloha from the beautiful island of Kauai. Gitanjali and I will be spending the next week visiting our 50th State along with our friends Matt and Brenna. I was very curious about beekeeping practices in Hawaii so I arranged to meet up with Matt Moore who is a local beekeeper on the island. He keeps 30 or so hives on a beautiful 10 acre farm just northwest of Kapaa which is on the east side of Kauai. Before taking a peak at the hives, we explored the farm and got a sense of what the bees are currently using for pollen and nectar sources.
This is Okinawa Spinach which is an edible ground cover.
This is another shot of the spinach showing the pollen sac of a bee.
This is Malabar Spinach which is a perennial vine found in the tropics that also has edible leaves.
This is Tulsi Basil which is a variety of basil found in India.
Here we have the flower from a native Hawaiian yam.
I didn’t catch the name of this plant but it was similar to a Bird of Paradise.
While not a good source of nectar, the pollen from coconut trees was very attractive to the bees.
These were just a handful of the flora around the farm that the bees were visiting. With so much in bloom, I figured the girls would produce honey all year, but this side of the island is very rainy and during the winter months, it rains a lot off and on through March. So even though the bees don’t slow down due to colder weather, they do go through a “winter” cycle as the rain keeps them in the hive more often than not during these months.
Stay tuned for Part II. Mahalo.
Urban Beekeeping in Austin, Texas 