296 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



problem than that of developing a strain 

 of bees with longer tongues. I would 

 not consider it more hopeful if we had 

 some way of controlling mating of queens. 



HATCHING CHICKENS. 



Using a Bee Hive as an Incubator. 



Sometimes when I go to the post-office 

 to mail some queens the mailing clerk 

 and myself get to swapping yarns. One 

 evening I told him about the man who, 

 thinking that corn"meal was too concen- 

 trated a food for his fowls, mixed saw- 

 dust with their rations. The result of 

 such a mixed diet was a trifle startling. 

 One of the hens, having laid 13 egg^, be- 

 gan the process of incubation. In due 

 time they all hatched, but what was the 

 surprise of the owner to find that 12 of 

 them had wooden legs, while the 13th one 

 was a woodpecker. 



Naturally, I expected that this would 

 floor m3' friend, but he came up bravely 

 to the attack. He said that, going out 

 one morning in P^ebruary to feed the 

 horses, he was surpised to hear the un- 

 mistakable peep of a chicken coming 

 from the manure pile. He poked away a 

 little loose manure near the side of the 

 barn, and there found a newly hatched 

 chicken. The supposition was that a hen 

 laid an egg in that place, or else some- 

 where in the litter where it had been 

 thrown out, and the warmth of the fer- 

 menting manure had hatched the egg, 

 even in winter. 



Now comes Mr. J. G. Norton of Illinois, 

 who tells the following story in the 

 American Bee Journal: 



My hives, as will be seen, are two-story 

 ohaff, that I adopted about 15 years ago, 

 and have been a success for honey and 

 also to hatch chickens. The first story is 

 chatT-packed, four inches back and front, 

 and two inches on the sides. Over the 

 brood chamber I place a piece of oilcloth 

 or canvas — either will do. I use for the 

 eggs a cushion witli hollow center which 

 is the shape of a hen's nest, and will hold 



• from 16 to 50 eggs. The cushion is eight 

 inches thick, and fills the top of the 

 second story within two inches of the top. 



Aftc- the eggs are placed in the nest, or 

 incubator,another small cushion is pressed 

 over the eggs, and all are kept warm. 

 The temperature outside mav drop 20 to 

 40 degrees, bnt that in the nest is kept 

 about the same. I find in this latitude 

 eggs can be set any time after February 

 15, and as we ver}^ seldom get surplus 

 honey here before June 10, all this time 

 can be used to advantage. The eggs 

 need turning only every two or three 

 days, in this way, so it does not need 

 very close watching. 



I am entirely satisfied with the plan, 

 and to show how sure I am of the results, 

 I have all the spring been setting pure Buff 

 Cochin egi;S worth 15.00 a sitting, and 

 have not lost a fertile egg; and the 

 chicks are the best and strongest I ever 

 had. 



Be sure to use the strongest colonies as 

 incubators, having at least six combs well 

 filled with broofl; then your test will re- 

 sult satisfactorily. 



When in the queen business I used a 

 lamp nursery for hatching out the queens. 

 I often tried to hatch out hen's eggs in 

 the lamp nursery, but never made a suc- 

 cess of it. Incubation would begin. By 

 holding the egg ut» to the light I could 

 see the veins, and a dark spot that I sup- 

 pose was the heart, but, after proceeding 

 thus far. the process would stop and go 

 no farther. I was talking about this with 

 Prof. Tracy of Detroit, who had had some 

 experience with incubators, and he said 

 the trouble probably was that the tfem- 

 perature was not high enough. When he 

 first began using an incubator he kept 

 the temperature at about the blood heat 

 of animals (98°), supposing that that was 

 the correct heat. Afterwards he found 

 that the heat of fowls is 105°. If Prof, 

 Tracy is correct, and Mr. Norton has 

 hatched eggs by the heat arising from 

 a colony of bees, there is a discrepancy 

 here that needs some explanation. The 

 temperature in my lamp nursery was 

 kept between 90 and 100°. If it went 

 above 100° it cooked the queens every 

 time. I believe that experiments show 

 that the normal temperature of a colony 

 of bees does not go above 100°. If this is 



