JANUARY 1, 1914 



21 



I paint the perches every week with ker- 

 osene and carbolic acid, and powder the 

 nests every week with Persian insect-pow- 

 der. Once a month I change the nest mate- 

 rial, also the litters out of the seratching- 

 pens. For the laying hens I have a room 

 10 X 12 feet next to my horse-stable, so it is 

 nice and warm. The scratching-pens, as can 

 be seen at the extreme left of Fig. 1, are 

 made out of old hot-bed sash 10 x 12 feet. 

 The yard is 20 x 50 long, and in summer the 

 chickens have free range. 



My wife takes care of all the young chick- 

 ens, hatching them under hens. All this we 

 do in our spare time, as I must attend to my 

 garden from 7 a. m. to 5 p. m. The bees I 

 attend to mostly alone in summer. 



Sometimes I took comb honey out at 3 a. 

 M. as the bees were quiet, and it was not so 

 hot' as in the bright sun, and at 7 A. M. I 

 was through. The extracting of honey and 

 grading of sections we did evenings. You 

 see if a man is ambitious be can do a good 

 deal. 



Lake Geneva, Wis. 



BEES AND POULTRY FOR ELDERLY PEOPLE 



Chicks Eating Drones 



BY H. H. SNOWBERGER 



My wife and I, now both past 75 years 

 of age, jointly own three acres of gi-ound, 

 and have for years kept bees and chickens 

 in the same lot. We have been quite suc- 

 cessful. While I do the work with the bees, 

 and feed the old chickens, the care of the 

 young chicks falls mostly to her during 

 swarming time, and until the honey-flow is 

 over, when I assist her to some extent until 

 later in the fall when cold weather sets in. 

 Then I assume all the work, both with bees 

 and chickens. While I do quite well with 

 the bees, there is occasionally a season, as 

 all beekeepers know, when the honey crop is 

 short or an entire failure; then an income 

 of from $150 to $175 per year from our 

 chickens comes in good play to bridge over 

 the shortage from honey. 



" But," many ask, " will the two get along 

 peaceably together? Will not the bees sting 

 the chickens'?" Well, that depends. So 

 long as we kept any black chickens we had 

 many a chick stung to death ; but when we 

 changed to Barred Plymouth Rocks there 

 were not so many. Five or .six years ago we 

 changed to Buff Orpingtons, and have had 

 practically no trouble from stinging since, 

 although the hens with their broods (we use 

 no incubator nor brooder) are among and 

 close to the hives more or less all day. I 

 don't think we have had a chick badly stung 



since we ha\e kept Buff OriDingtons. A 

 very few times I have seen one or two bees 

 attack an old hen when she came too close 

 or became too fussy close to a hive. But 

 she would soon skeedaddle, and the brood 

 would follow. 



One advantage in keeping chickens in the 

 same yard with bees is getting rid of drones. 

 I don't aim to rear many drones except in 

 a few choice colonies ; but, as all beekeepers 

 know, almost every colony will find or make 

 a place to rear a few drones; and in man- 

 ipulating my bees I always have a sharp 

 knife in my tool-kit; and if I find any un- 

 desirable drone brood I shave their heads 

 off, when, of course, the bees will drag them 

 out and drop them in front of the luve, 

 where the chickens soon find them and learn 

 to eat drones, and soon go to catching live 

 ones, picking them from among the work- 

 ers on the alighting-board, and even catch- 

 ing them on the wing in front of the hive. 

 I have my hives close to the ground ; but if 

 I have any choice drones that I wish to save 

 I must set the hive 20 or 24 inches above 

 the ground. This work is invariably done 

 by the young chickens after the mother henj 

 has left the brood, or when they weigh 1^/4 

 to 2 lbs. I don't remember ever seeing an 

 old hen catching drones; but the chicks do, 

 and they go about it with perfect impunity, 

 seldom being attacked by bees. Not all the 

 chicks nor even a majority of them catch 

 drones; but every season a few learn the 

 trick, and they practice it industriously and 

 succesfully. I have often watched them to 

 see if they caught workers, but could never 

 see them catch a worker. 



The Buff Orpingtons do finely for us 

 along with bees. They are of good size, 

 easily confined, a fair layer, good mothers, 

 not easily excited, a splendid table fowl, and 

 the nicest fowl to dress we ever raised. 

 They sell very readily on that account, but 

 the hens are inclined to be a little broody. 



We eat all the eggs and chicken we want, 

 and sell $150 to $175 worth of eggs and 

 chickens per year. We also keep a cow, 

 and from these three sources we make a 

 comfortable living on our three acres of 

 ground, and have a little laid by for a rainy 

 day which is fast approaching. 



Before I engaged in bee and poultry 

 keeping I worked by day's work, and little 

 more than made a living. For some years 

 I have not been able to do hard work; but 

 by keeping bees and chickens I need not 

 work nearly as hard as I formerly did, and 

 can make a much better living than when 

 doing day labor; and there are many elder- 

 ly people in limited circumstances barely 

 making a living at hard labor who could 

 materially increase their income, and per- 



