January, 1920 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



47 



ty, i'or you can l)iiy it almost all ovei' (he 

 world. 



Now the great luoial to this long story 

 is to '' get busy " parching your corn and 

 wheat in a dripping pan in the oven, and 

 then grind it in jour own home. Make a 

 '• short cut between producer and consum- 

 er." A coffee mill will do; and one to be 

 run by electricity is the thing, especially 

 when you get the electricity from a wind- 

 mill, as your old friend A. I. Root does. 



By the wa}', that windmill and the elec- 

 tric automobile are working together like 

 l)rothers, and doing their job beautifully. 



SOME OF OUR " HAPPY SURPRISES " ON 



REACHING OUR FLORIDA WINTER 



HOME. 



House Avas found cleaned in very good 

 shape. No mud-wasp nests. No roaches — 

 not a one. No Hies. No mosquitoes until 

 last night and then only one. Not a rat on 

 the premises so far. No hot weathei*. No 

 dust anywhere and no mud. Auto looks as 

 fine as when we bought it. Corn, peas, 

 lettuce, and onions up in garden and grow- 

 ing fine. Potatoes almost up. Whole house 

 lighted by windmill. 



TAKING A TRIP IN A FLYING-MACHINE. 



In our October issue I told you about my 

 flight of seven or eight minutes, and I also 

 said I hesitated for fear I might be setting 

 a bad example, and thereby induce others 

 to take a triji and possibly lose their lives 

 in so doing. Well, the two young men who 

 had charge of the machine assured the 

 (i-owd there was almost no risk — that they 

 had made, if I remember correctly, some- 

 thing like 12,000 trips without an accident. 

 I had reason, however, to thinli the above 

 was more or less an exaggeration ; and I 

 noticed, too, that every passenger carried 

 was obliged to sign a paper releasing the 

 managers from all responsibility in ease 

 of accident. Well, now comes the sad wind- 

 up. The very man or boy, I should call 

 him, for whom I signed the paper lost his 

 own life, and tluit of the passenger, only a 

 few days afterward. It seems they made the 

 night successfully, and were comparatively 

 near the ground, when sometliing happened 

 to the maciiine, just what nobody can at 

 the present time tell, if I am correct about 

 it. But the whole thing came crashing to 

 the ground. The gasoline took fire, and the 

 two occupants were charred corpses before 

 any help could reach them. We are told 

 they were both killed by the accident be- 

 fore the machine took fire. I believe there 

 is a movement on foot just now to make the 

 entire machine of something non-conil)usti- 



ble. As flying-machines go thru the evo- 

 lution that they must go thru with, like 

 automobiles, railway cars, etc., it is likely 

 the liability to such accidents will be large- 

 ly done away with. 



:\roTH miller; none to bother bees in 



NORTH COLORADO. 



Dear Mr. Root: — "With this I send you a message 

 from the foothills. It represents Colorado sunshine 

 and flowers. I think the honey I produce here is 

 of a finer quality than that produced in the valley, 

 tho the field is limited and would not sustain many 

 colonies without overstocking. In the early spring 

 the bees huild up and store surplus from wild flow- 

 ers. Later, our main source of honey is alfalfa and 

 sweet clover. 



Mr. Root, at one of our little beekeepers' con- 

 ventions in Bradentown I was asked to tell some- 

 thing about beekeeping in Colorado. Among other 

 things I mentioned the fact that there are no wax 

 moths here in north Colorado. You expressed sur- 

 prise and .seemed almost to question my statement. 

 I do not know why they will not live here, nor do 

 I know the extent of the area where they are not 

 found. It would be interesting to bring the sub- 

 ject up in some western convention and endeavor 

 to gain some light on the matter. Very truly yours, 



A. E. Ault. 



La Porte, Colo., Oct. 15, 1919. 



Friend A., I take it from the above that 

 the moth miller has not yet reached your 

 locality ; and the thing to do is to take 

 great pains, in buying bees from a distance, 

 to see that it does not get started with you. 

 While it is a comparatively easy matter to 

 keep free of it, " prevention " is very much 

 better than " cure." 



ELECTRIC LIGHTS IN THE HEN HOUSE. 



Dear Mr. Root:- — I have been reading your Home 

 Department in Gleanings for over 30 years. I want 

 to tell you something about electric lights in hen- 

 houses. The person that originated the scheme lives 

 here in Arlington. He uses also electric incubators 

 and brooders. Now the secret of this light system 

 is as follows: The grain is scattered in the straw 

 in the house so that the hens have to scratch for it. 

 The switch to turn on the lights is fixed to an alarm 

 clock set to go off at 3:30 in the morning, which 

 wakes up the hens and they lay fresh eggs for 

 breakfast. The light in the evening did not work 

 well, as it made the hens warm and liable to catch 

 cold. Besides it was difficult to get them on the 

 roost again. The morning light gets them out early 

 and warms them in the coldest part of the day, and 

 the alarm clock wakes them up, without anybody 

 liaving to get up and turn on the switch. 



Chas. F. Kinzie. 



Arlington Calif.. Nov. 17, 1919. 



INTENSIVE FARMING. 



They used to have a farming 

 Of fortv acres and a mule. 



rule 



Results were won by later men 

 With forty square feet and a hen. 



And nowadays success we see 

 With forty inches and a bee. 



-Wasp. 



