38 PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 



received a like valuation of property from any other source 

 on the farm. And this method may be repeated from year 

 to year; just set on your honey cases about the first of 

 May and lift them off about the first of November, two visits 

 a year, this being about as nearly automatic as we should 

 expect to get things in this world. And it opens great possi- 

 bilities, not only for our farmers, but city dwellers as well 

 where they have attic room.. And it should be of still 

 greater value to our men with large apiaries in out yards 

 where bees are kept on a large scale. For with a modified 

 plan the apiary may be doubled artificially in one visit at 

 the time of taking off the white honey, the latter part of 

 July, with little or no labor. 



CHAPTER XVI 

 Bees, Poultry and Fruit. 



Here are three industries, either one of which, if well 

 followed, will make a full-fledged business or occupation, but 

 after having had the privilege of studying the whole three 

 for some 35 years, I have fully come to the conclusion, that 

 the best results can be obtained from a judicious combina- 

 tion of all of these industries. 



Each of these vocations are helpful to the others 

 and in some respects absolutely necessary for the best 

 results, for instance: The fruits are a great help to the 

 bees and the bees are just as essential for the proper pollena- 

 tion of the fruits; but some may wonder how the poultry 

 could be benefitted or be a benefit to the bees or fruit. 



Well, it is like this: the poultry needs and must have 

 shade. We might about as well cut the heads from our 

 poultry as to turn them into a barren lot without shade, 

 and fruit trees, especially plum trees makes a very fine 

 shade for the poultry, and the poultry does not seem to care 

 for or trouble the plums. On the farm our plum orchard 

 came right down to the chicken yard, but I never knew the 

 chickens to, in any way, trouble the plums. 



But why select plums for the poultry yard ? The first 

 consideration would be because the curculio, this trouble- 

 some insect that stings the plums and destroys the fruit, 

 cannot well exist where plenty of poultry is kept in the plum, 

 orchard. This insect in early spring burrows in the ground 

 about the plum trees and where the poultry is kept to work 

 the ground over under the trees this insect cannot live. 



For this reason the keeping of poultry is the best means 

 to employ to rid the plum orchard of this troublesome pest. 



