608 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULUTP.E 



My good friend, basswood trees will be- 

 gin to bloom, usually, in four or five years 

 from the seed — sometimes even three years; 

 but, like all other plants, or at least like 

 almost all others, it is only occasionally 

 that we get a great yield of honey. There 

 is as yet, I am pretty sure, no government 

 bulletin in regard to basswood trees. 



I can not answer your question about 

 suitable soil, further than to say that bass- 



wood thrives best near a stream of running 

 water. In fact, we often see gi'eat trees 

 overhanging water, and it does best on any 

 low and rather moist land. But there must 

 be drainage, for the basswood will not grow 

 in standing water. Wherever you find it 

 growing wild in the woods it is pretty sure 

 to tlu'ive under cultivation. In fact, with 

 proper care, drainage, moisture, etc., it 

 can be made to grow almost anywhere. 



Poultry Department 



THE CONVERGENT EGG-FARM, ETC. 



Mr. Root. — Please tell us in your paper whether 

 Mr. Stoddard ever in his life made a dving from 

 poultry. I have knovrn of him 30 years, and he 

 was always advocating some wonderful (Pliilo) 

 scheme for making people rich raisin;? iioultry. 

 But they were all wind, and impractical nonsense. 

 He is still at it. 



Great Barrington, Mass. Seth Winstokk. 



My good friend, are you not a little 

 rough on our old friend Stoddard f While 

 there is a good deal of truth in what you 

 say, I believe it is also true that Stoddard's 

 first little book, "An Egg-farm," in which 

 he first, so far as I know, advocated colo- 

 ny houses, was a very valuable contribution 

 to our Iioultry literature. If you have 

 been a reader of Gleanings you may be 

 aware that I afterward severely criticised 

 his larger book because it had so much im- 

 practical machinery. 



Now, in regard to the convergent-poul- 

 try-yards idea: A few days ago I visited 

 the city of Cleveland exjjressly to get a 

 competent architect to make jjlans for our 

 proposed bungalow cottage. He said it 

 was out of the question for him to do it at 

 once as I desired, and he finally gave his 

 reasons. He and all his force of several 

 clerks were working almost day and night 

 on a great dairy barn or dairy farm. It 

 was exactly like the convergent poultry- 

 yard that I described in Gleanings. The 

 cows were all on a circle with their heads 

 toward the center, and the care w^as all 

 given from that inner circle, the feed being 

 dropped by gi-avity from the loft overhead. 

 The architect, Mr. Herbert B. Briggs, in- 

 formed us that such a dairy farm is al- 

 ready in working order at the Agricultural 

 University of Illinois. Now, friend Stod- 

 dard in his youth did give us a good idea 

 through the American Agriculturist, and 

 later in his .30-cent book, of Avhich we sold 

 over 1000 copies; and if he gives us in his 

 old age another good idea, in the converg- 

 ent yard, shall we not give him ci-edit? 

 Very likely it is true that friend Stoddard, 

 like many other inventors and geniuses, 

 never had the faculty for "making money," 



as does friend Philo to whom you allude, 

 and otl;ers who may not be half as deserv- 

 ing. 



"moral degenerates" in the chicken-yard. 



In your issue for Aug. 15 you ask, "Will 

 chickens eat bees?" I take the usual amateur's 

 delight in volunteering what I knoiv to be a fact. 

 Not all chickens will. I don't believe some could 

 even be induced to eat even dead ones; but you 

 know, or ought to, that in every poultry-yard there 

 is apt to be one or more "moral degenerates" that 

 will persist in eating unwholesome food, catching 

 wasps, centipedes, etc., and any filthy offal they 

 can get to. 



For two years I had chickens and bees. The 

 first year I had two that just haunted the runway 

 before the hives till I killed them. The second 

 year I had one that took it up, so I made away 

 with him. They were fair-sized broilers before I 

 ever caught them at it. They may have begun 

 by picking up dead bees around the entrances, 

 though I frequently poured crude petroleum over 

 them and all around the hives to keep down ants 

 and grass. 



They didn't seem to mind being stung. I would 

 throw cobs at the hives to stir the bees up, hoping 

 they would rally and drive them off. They would 

 just dance and flutter a little, and then pick oft 

 the adhering bees and eat them, and deliberately 

 go back to picking them off the alighting-board. 



I have seen a hen pick them off the alighting- 

 board of a hive in an old negro's front yard. He 

 said she ate a few every day "for pepper." 



A bee-sting hurts a little chick, and swells it 

 up as tight as a tick. I had one killed by one 

 sting on the neck. 



Bee-eaters are like egg-eaters, feather-pullers, 

 and those that get to pecking each other's heads 

 to pieces. Feeding meat scrap is sometimes sup- 

 posed to induce these habits; by others, the absence 

 of meat in the rations is charged to the fault; but 

 it is just a depraved appetite that will show up 

 in some individuals of every flock, whatever the 

 plan of management. 



Little Rock, Ark., Aug. 1. Jerry Humphrey. 



My experience indicates that the above is 

 exactly right. 



Here is something more along the same 

 line : 



Chickens will eat bees when they have no large 

 run. I was trying out a pen of White Leghorna 

 for record, and confined them near where bees 

 would fly out in early spring and get chilled, and 

 others would fly near by. The chickens would 

 catch them first, kill them, and then eat them. 

 I lost many before I "got wise." I have been 

 keeping bees about 20 years. 



Astoria, N. Y. 0. L. 



You want to know if any one has positive know- 

 ledge about chickens eating bees. I will say this: 

 I noticed a young chicken, probably a third grown, 

 eatinor bees at the entrance as they would alight. 

 I killed the chicken, and it had killed ninety, I 

 think. This is the only one which I ever had oc- 

 casion to examine. ,1. R. Cooper. 



Spargursville, O., Aug. 20. 



