16 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Nov. 15 



used in my lamp would gum up the wick. 

 I sent to the Standard Oil Co. and got some 

 high-grade oil made specially for incubators. 

 Montgomery Ward & Co. furnish this same 

 incubator oil at 16>^ cts. per gallon. Well, 

 I poured all the oil out of my lamps, put in a 

 new wick, and filled them up with new oil. 

 Then I adjusted the flame down low at about 

 the point where I had been using it. As 

 this new oil gave more heat I was obliged to 

 turn the flame down considerably lower; 

 but when I got to the right point it stayed 

 "right there;" and, best of all, the thermom- 

 eter "stayed right there." It has now been 

 running four days. The quantity of oil con- 

 sumed IS insignificant, and the thermometer 

 has not varied more than one or two degrees. 

 The lamp has not been touched during all 

 this time. By manipulating the little damper 

 in the top of the chimney (see last issue), 

 the temperature can be controlled very nice- 

 ly; and if you can work your incubator in a 

 cellar where the temperature changes but 

 very little, there is surely no need of a ther- 

 mostat to control the temperature. Let us 

 now go back to the five chicks from ten eggs. 

 After they had been on the top shelf of tne 

 incubator with their heads out in the open 

 air, and their bodies up against the warm 

 boiler for 24 hours, I put them outdoors with 

 a hen I found at my next-door neighbor's 

 that wanted to sit. I found her on a couple 

 of china eggs. She was at first quite rebel- 

 lious; and when I took her china eggs away, 

 and gave her the five chicks instead, the sit- 

 uation was evidently beyond her comprehen- 

 sion. When the chicks began to peep pit- 

 eously, however, for some Kind of recogni- 

 tion, she finally condescended to recognize 

 them, and finally selected phrases from her 

 hen vocabulary that they would understand. 

 This introduction was made after dark. I 

 left her with the chicks one whole day. The 

 second day, as the sun was shining brightly, 

 even though the air was frosty, I thought I 

 would let her take them out. Just as I 

 opened the door and was standing by to see 

 howthey behaved with their new step-mother 

 (now out on the grass) , somebody called me 

 on important business, and so I forgot all 

 about my five precious chickens until some 

 time in the afternoon. When I went out to 

 her little house where she had been confin- 

 ed with the little chicks, no sign of a hen 

 was to be seen; but when I raised the cover 

 and looked ins'de, my heart gave a great 

 thump. There lay my five flossy, golden- 

 yellow beauties, stretched out, apparently, 

 "cold and stiff in death." When I took hold 

 of one of them it ventured to open its eyes a 

 little in a pitiful and mournful way as much 

 as to say, "Oh! why did you leave us to suf- 

 fer and die in this way?" They were so cold 

 and stiff, that, when I picked up one by its 

 little yellow leg, its body was even then 

 quite rigid. I gathered them up in my hands, 

 rushed to the incubator, and laid them on 

 top of some eggs that had not yet hatched, 

 closed the incubator, and waited a couple of 

 hours. Then there was a little symptom of 

 life. In half a day most of them staggered 



about in a sort of drunken way. Mrs. Root 

 suggested that the mother-hen would be bet- 

 ter than that hot incubator. Now let us go 

 back. Just as soon as I got the chicks in a 

 warm place I went over to my neighbor's, 

 and there stood my stupid hen by the fence, 

 wanting to get on her nest with her two 

 china eggs. I felt like "boxing her ears" 

 for being so heartless as to go off and leave 

 her chicks in that way. But it does not pay 

 to quarrel with a mother-hen when she has 

 a brood of chickens to take care of, about the 

 first of November. I put her back in her 

 box, and put the chicks under her. About 

 10 o'clock I went out to see whether they had 

 come to life. At first I could not find them; 

 but finally I discovered them standing on 

 their tip toes with their bodies up under her 

 wings, and their little heads sticking out 

 among her feathers to get the life-giving 

 fresh air, even though it was a frosty night. 

 Well, now, did this chill give them dysen- 

 tery, or did they get "pasted up behind"? 

 Not a bit of it. The chill happened about a 

 week ago, and now they are running all over 

 the neighborhood along with their mother — 

 yes, clear over to where I found her sitting 

 on the china eggs, and they are about the 

 spryest and nicest lot of chicks I ever saw. 



Now, there is a moral right here — perhaps 

 two or three of them. Getting chilled does 

 not always hurt chicks; and if we human be- 

 ings lived as we ought to live, as Terry and 

 Fletcher do, for instance, getting chilled 

 would not hurt us either. 



These chicks have had nothing but baby- 

 chick food and pure water. They never had 

 any mashes or messes of any sort. 



Just now, Nov. 1, there is a prospect that 

 Mrs. Root and I may not get off to Florida 

 next week, as we intended, as she has a 

 touch of her old complaint, pleurisy. Our 

 family doctor said she would probably be all 

 right in a day or two without any medicine; 

 but his advice was this: "Let her stay in bed 

 covered up warm, but open all the doors and 

 windows." May God be praised that we 

 have at least a few doctors nowadays who 

 give such sensible advice as the above in- 

 stead of drugs. What saved the chickens, 

 and makes them strong and robust, will do 

 the same thing for the human family. 



I omitted to mention that the doctor told 

 her to take but little or no food until this at- 

 tack had gone by; and he recommended 

 milk if she could take it, rather than any 

 solid food of any kind. 



THE "CHICKEN BUSINESS" IN FLORIDA. 



You who have been following my Florida 

 notes for the past three winters know al- 

 ready what I think of it. It seems to me 

 that Florida is about the nicest place in the 

 world to keep chickens. You do not need 

 any expensive structures to get through 

 winter; and, in fact, you can keep chickens 

 there without even a box or barrel; yes, and 

 you can raise chicks too, for that matter, if 

 you choose. Of course, you will need to 

 hunt the eggs, and perhaps you will decide 

 that you need some kind of protection with 



