598 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 15 



gave me a clew to the trouble. The hen with 

 eight chickens hatched them upstairs in one of 

 the little poultry-houses. One night she climbed 

 the stairs to go back, to her old nest. The eight 

 chickens could not follow, so they doubled up 

 with the hen that had the thirteen; and I con- 

 cluded I would save time by letting them stay, 

 especially as their mother was a borrowed hen; 

 but when I picked her up to carry her home (she 

 belonged to Huber, across the way) she was so 

 light that I uttered an exclamation of surprise; 

 in fact, she was nothing but skin and bones; and 

 then I remembered that, when I borrowed her, 

 about three weeks before, she seemed to have so 

 little weight I was astonished; but I thought that, 

 with plenty of food, and nothing to do but to sit 

 on a nest, she would fatten up all right. But it 

 turned out the other way. She got poorer and 

 lighter still. Why did I give such a poor scrawny 

 hen nineteen eggs.? Well, I did not give her the 

 nineteen. I first had a good large fat hen with 

 the nineteen eggs; but after she went out on a 

 strike and threw up her job I went all around 

 the neighborhood to get any kind of sitting hen; 

 and that is how I got hold of this light one. 

 Now, my theory is this-. That hen was out of 

 health, and she could not keep up the proper 

 temperature, even during the last days of June. 

 And the moral I would adduce is this: When 

 you get a sitting hen to do a good job (especially 

 if you are going to give her nineteen eggs), get a 

 good big fat hen that has a good constitution and 

 a lot of stored-up flesh and blood to furnish the 

 proper amount of bodily heat when needed. It 

 just now occurs to me that the hen that hatched 

 every one of the thirteen eggs used to get off her 

 nest and stay for two or three hours during warm 

 days. Yesterday, July 5, I noticed a hen that 

 had a little inclosure about her nest, so that the 

 other hens could not disturb her, got off her eggs 

 in the middle of the day, and sat down beside 

 them, instead of over them, for all of two hours; 

 and the sitting hens that do the best work often 

 take almost a "half-holiday" when the weather 

 is quite warm. One very successful hatch came 

 off when the mother was away for a couple of 

 hours when two or three of the eggs were chip- 

 ped. Of course, the weather was very warm; 

 and although I was tempted to think she did not 

 know her own business, the result seemed to in- 

 dicate that she did. One of the poultry journals 

 has suggested that an ordinary sitting hen has 

 more wisdom in her little noddle than all the 

 great incubator manufacturers and poultry peo- 

 ple of the whole wide world massed together; and 

 I confess that I often feel like uncovering my 

 head and sitting down at the feet of a sitting hen 

 when she stands up beside her nest, and tips her 

 little head to one side as if to say, "You may 

 bring on your scientific man and scientific books; 

 but after you have got them all piled up, not all 

 of you together know as much about this busi- 

 ness as I do." 



DUCKS, APPLE-BLOOM HONEY, ETC. 



You may wonder what ducks have got to do 

 with apple-bloom honey; and, by the way, quite 

 a few of the friends have inquired anxiously about 

 my ducks this season. Well, I am sorry to tell 

 you I am not in the "duck business" at present 

 — not because I have lost interest, for, in fact, it 



is just the other way; but it was because 1 became 

 satisfied that no one should think of keeping 

 ducks unless he is oflr on a farm or where there 

 are no neighbors very near. 



As my ducks became older they seemed to be 

 more and more inquisitive. At first the neigh- 

 bors laughed at their queer actions, and said they 

 rather liked to see the ducks around. But pretty 

 soon they got to be a little too inquisitive. They 

 were not only inquisitive, but they had a fashion 

 of sampling every thing that looked as if it might 

 be good to eat. In fact, I could not get a single 

 blossom from my perennial peas last year because 

 the ducks would, by some hook or crook, snap 

 off the blossom-buds. Ducks are great explorers. 

 Every day they went a little further, and I am 

 just now waiting until I can get off by myself 

 somewhere (may be down in Florida), where I 

 can renew my acquaintance with those odd friends 

 of mine, the Indian runner ducks. 



On page 1157, Sept. 1, last year, I told you 

 about my friend and neighbor, Mr. Philip Bohlei 

 and his ducks. Well, he has over one hundted 

 young ones already, and his first hatching has 

 just been sent to market. Last year he got 60 

 cents each, live weight; but this year the price is 

 somewhat better than that. He is on a good- 

 sized farm, with no neighbors near. The ducks 

 wander into a brook that runs through the woods 

 nearly a quarter of a mile from his house. These 

 ducks almost board themselves this season of the 

 year. If you are interested you had better turn 

 back and read the article I have mentioned. 

 Well, I want to tell you this last day of June 

 that Mr. Bohlei is also something of a bee-keep- 

 er. I think he got a few colonies last spring; 

 and he has just surprised me by bringing me a 

 jar of apple-bloom honey. In fact, he has ex- 

 tracted during apple-blossom time 240 lbs. from 

 7 colonies, and it was all sold quickly to his 

 neighbors at the rate of $1.00 a gallon. You 

 may begin to suspect what I have just found out, 

 that Mr. Bohlei, with his nice family of boys 

 and girls, is one of the men who succeed in al- 

 most every thing they undertake. The family 

 all get up early in the morning, and they not 

 only k:iow how to work, but I think they lo-i'e to 

 work. So you see it does not make very much 

 difference whether it is ducks or bees or general 

 farming. They always have their dish right side 

 up when it rains honey, even if it be for only 

 just a day or two during apple-bloom as it did 

 here in Ohio. 



HOW TO MAKE A HEN'S NEST. 



Mr. Root: — The box you described on p. 768, June 15, is ideal, 

 but the contents is where we differ. Fix your box as you de- 

 scribed; then go to some good sod land, cut a piece of sod a little 

 larger than you wish your nest to be, and let the sod have green 

 grass on it three or four inches long if you can get it. Place it 

 on the box. Now take some clean straw and make the sides of 

 your nest to keep the eggs from rolling out, and place your eggs 

 on the sod. The green grass will soon turn yellow, and the eggs 

 will be on a nest as soft as a pillow. In the winter months the 

 cold air can not come up through the bottom of your nest to chill 

 your eggs, and in summer it keeps cool. Your hens will sit bet- 

 ter, the eggs will hatch better, and this is my way to make a 

 nest after fourteen years of experience in raising poultry. I am 

 a cripple, made so by having my hip dislocated while playing 

 base ball fourteen years ago. I can not do a day's work, so I 

 turned to poultry, which 1 have studied very closely. 



In the month of March I set nine hens on 135 eggs. They 

 broke but one, and hatched 122 chickens, strong and robust. The 

 eggs seem to draw some moisture from the sod. The nest stays 

 clean and sweet — no foul smell about it, even when used the 

 second time. L. M. Morris. 



Bower, W. Va. 



