Chicken Chat.
One of my correspondents writes: "My hens don't eat well—they just pick over the food as if it were not good enough for them—and they don't lay well; in fact they don't do much of anything except to mope about—not as if sick, but as if lazy."
Probably you have fed the same thing every day for the last six months, and the hens are getting tired of it. Hens are like other people—they like a change of provender once in awhile—especially when confined indoors. Sometimes over-feeding will cause indigestion, and then the biddies will exhibit the symptoms you describe. In either case, let the fowls fast for a whole day, and then for a few days feed lightly with food that is different from what they have been living on. Give plenty of green food, also Douglas' mixture in the drinking water twice a week.
Another correspondent wants to know why I always advise giving cooked food to fowls and chicks when uncooked food is the natural diet.
I advise cooked food because experience has taught me that it is much better for poultry than the raw articles would be. Because raw bugs and worms constitute the "natural diet" of fowls in their wild state, it does not follow that raw meal and potatoes would be the best and most economical food for our domestic fowls. Other things being equal, chicks that are fed on cooked food grow fatter, are less liable to disease, and thrive better generally than those who worry along on uncooked rations.
If you are short of sitting hens and don't own an incubator, make the hens do double duty. Set two or more at the same time, and when the chicks come out, give two families to one hen, and set the other over again. To do this successfully, the chicks must be taken from the nest as soon as dry and given to the hen that is to raise them; for if a hen once leaves the nest with her chicks, no amount of moral suasion will induce her to go back. Before giving the hen fresh eggs, the nest should be renovated and the hen dusted with sulphur or something to prevent lice.
A lady who commenced raising thoroughbred poultry last season writes me that she proposes to sell eggs for hatching this season, and asks for information about advertising, packing eggs, etc.
The advertising is easy enough: all you have to do is to write a copy of your "ad.," send it to The Prairie Farmer and other papers that circulate among farmers, pay the bills, and answer the postals and letters as they come. But if I were in your shoes, I would "put my foot down" on the postals to begin with; they don't amount to anything anyway; the people who ask a long string of questions on a postal card are not, as a rule, the ones who become customers. Before we went into the poultry business an old poultry-breeder said: "Don't have anything to do with postals, it don't pay." We thought differently, but to satisfy ourselves, we kept track of the postals, and to-day I have the addresses of over 300 people who wrote us on postal cards. How many of those people became customers? Just one, and he was an Ohio man. When I go into that branch of the poultry business again, my advertisements will contain a postscript[t] which will read thusly: "No postals answered."
And you need not expect that every letter will mean business; people who have not the remotest idea of buying eggs will write and ask your prices, etc., and you must answer them all alike. Here is where circulars save lots of work and postage. I have sent you by mail what I call a model circular, and from that you can get up something to fit your case. Pack your eggs in baskets in cut straw or chaff, first wrapping each egg separately in paper. The eggs should not touch each other or the basket. Put plenty of packing on top, and with a darning needle and stout twine sew on a cover of stout cotton cloth. For the address use shipping tags, or else mark it plainly on the white cotton cover; I prefer the latter way. A day or two before you ship the eggs send a postal telling your customer when to look for them; that's all that postals are good for.
Concerning the duplicating of orders in cases of failure of the eggs to hatch, I quote from one of my old circulars: "I guarantee to furnish fresh eggs, true to name, from pure-bred, standard fowls, packed to carry safely any distance. In cases of total failure, when the eggs have been properly cared for and set within two weeks after arrival, orders will be duplicated free of charge." I furnished just what I promised, and when a total failure was reported I sent the second sitting free—though sometimes I felt sure that the eggs were not properly cared for, and once a man reported a failure when, as I afterwards learned, eight eggs of the first sitting hatched. But, generally speaking, my customers were pretty well satisfied. It sometimes happens that only one or two eggs out of a sitting will hatch, and naturally the customer feels that he has not received the worth of his money. In such cases, if both parties are willing to do just what is right, the matter can be arranged so that all will be satisfied. And you will sometimes get hold of a customer that nothing under the heavens will satisfy; when this happens, do just exactly as you would wish to be done by, and there let the matter end.
If the lady who wrote from Carroll county, Illinois, concerning an incubator, will write again and give the name of her postoffice, she will receive a reply by mail.
Fanny Field.
Spring Care of Bees.
Although yesterday was very cold and inclement, to-day (March 11th) is warm and pleasant, and bees that are wintered upon their summer stands will be upon the wing. It would be well on such days as this to see that all entrances to hives are open, so that no hindrances may be in the way of house-cleaning. This is all we think necessary for this month, provided they have plenty of stores to last until flowers bloom. Handling bees tends to excite them to brood rearing, and veterans in bee-culture claim that this uses up the vitality of bees in spring very fast. Although more young may be reared, it is at the risk of the old ones, as they leave the hive in search of water; many thus perish, which often results in the death of the colony, as the young perish for want of nurses. Sometimes, also, in handling bees early in the season the queens are lost, as they may fall upon the ground, yet chilled, and perish.
Bees consume food very fast while rearing brood; naturalists tells us that insects during the larvæ state consume more food than they do during the remainder of their existence. Where a bee-keeper has been so improvident as to neglect to provide abundance of stores for his bees he should examine them carefully, and if found wanting, remove an empty frame, substituting a full one in its place. Where frames of honey are not to be had, liquid honey and sugar can be kneaded together, forming cakes, which can be placed over the cluster. Care should be taken that no apertures are left, thus forming a way for cold drafts through the hive. These cakes are thought to excite bees less than when liquid food is given; they have another advantage, also, viz., bees can cluster upon them while[] feeding, and do not get chilled.
Bees that have been wintered in cellars, or special repositories, are often injured by being removed too early to their summer stands. It would be better to let them remain, and lower the temperature during warm days with ice, until warm weather has come to stay. An aged veteran in Vermont that we visited the season following the disastrous winter of 1880-81, told us that his neighbors removed their bees from the cellar during a warm spell early in spring, and they were then in splendid condition. He let his bees remain until pollen was plentiful, and brought them out, all being in fine order; by this time his neighbors' colonies were all dead.
Good judgment and care must be exercised in removing bees from the cellar, or disastrous results will follow. We know of an apiary of over one hundred colonies that was badly injured, indeed nearly ruined, by all being taken from the cellar at once on a fine, warm day. The bees all poured out of the hives for a play spell, like children from school, and having been confined so long together in one apartment had acquired, in some measure, the same scent, and soon things were badly mixed. Some colonies swarmed, others caught the fever, and piled up together in a huge mass. This merry making may have been fun for the bees, but it was the reverse of this for the owner, as many queens were destroyed, and hives that were populous before were carried from the cellar and left without a bee to care for the unhatched brood.
When it is time to remove bees from the cellar the stands they are to occupy should be prepared beforehand. They should be higher at the back, inclining to the front; if the height of two bricks are at the back, one will answer for the front. This inclination to the front is an important matter; it facilitates the carrying out of dead bees and debris from the hive, the escape of moisture, and last, and most important item, bees will build their comb straight in the frame instead of crosswise of the hive, and their surplus comb in boxes correspondingly. If a few hives are removed near the close of the day and put in different parts of the apiary, the danger from swarming out is avoided, for the bees will become quiet before morning, and being far apart will not mix up when they have their play spell. The success of bee-keeping depends upon the faithful performance of infinite little items.
The many friends of the Rev. L. L. Langstroth will be pained to learn that he has a severe attack of his old malady and unable to do any mental work. May the Lord deal kindly and gently with him.
During the last fall and winter he has been the light of many conventions, and it will be remembered as a pleasant episode in the lives of many bee-keepers that they had the privilege of viewing his beaming countenance, hearing the words of wisdom as they escaped from his lips, and taking the hand of this truly great and good man.
Mrs. L. Harrison
Extracted Honey.
A couple of copies of The Prairie Farmer have lately come to my desk, a reminder of my boyhood days, when, in the old home with my father, I used to contribute an article now and then to its columns. There is an old scrap-book on the shelf, at my right, now, with some of those articles in it, published nearly thirty years ago. But my object in writing now is to add something to Mrs. Harrison's article on Extracted Honey. Last year my honey crop was about 3,000 pounds, and half of this was extracted, or slung honey, as we bee-keepers often call it; but for next year I have decided to raise nearly all comb honey, for the reason that I do not get customers so readily for extracted honey. I have never extracted until the honey was all, or nearly all, capped over, and then admitted air into the vessels holding it, so as to be absolutely sure of getting it "dry," and proof against souring. This method has given me about half the amount others obtained by extracting as soon as the combs were filled by the bees, and ripening afterward.
But in spite of all these precautions I find so much prejudice against extracted honey, growing out of the ignorance of the public with regard to this sweet, ignorance equaled only by the ignorance in regard to bees themselves, that the sale of such honey has been very slow; so slow that while my comb honey is reduced at this date to about 150 pounds, I have several ten-gallon kegs of pure white honey still on hand.
Especially is there a prejudice against candied honey, though that is an absolute test of purity, and it can be readily liquified, as Mrs. H. says, without injury. When I say that it is an absolute test of purity I mean that all honey that candies evenly is pure, though some of the best honey I have ever had never candied at all. In one case I knew the honey to candy in the combs of a new swarm early in autumn; but some seasons, particularly very dry ones, it will hardly candy at all. This difference seems to be due to the varying proportion of natural glucose, which will crystallize, and levulose, or mellose, which will not crystallize. Manufactured glucose will not crystallize; and some of our largest honey merchants, even the Thurbers, of New York, have mixed artificial glucose with honey to avoid loss by the ignorant prejudice of the public.
Wm. Camm.
Morgan Co., Ill.
South'n Wisconsin Bee-keepers' Ass'n.
The bee-keepers met in Janesville, Wis., on the 4th inst., and organized a permanent society, to be known as the Southern Wisconsin Bee-keepers' Association. The following named persons were elected officers for the ensuing year: President, C. O. Shannon; Vice-President, Levi Fatzinger; Secretary, J. T. Pomeroy; Treasurer, W. S. Squire.
The regular sessions of the association will be held on the first Tuesday of March in each year. Special meetings will also be held, the time of which will be determined at previous meeting.
The object of the association is to promote scientific bee-culture, and form a bond of union among bee-keepers. Any person may become a member by signing the constitution, and paying a fee of fifty cents. The next meeting will be held at the Pember house, Janesville, on the first Tuesday in May at 10 o'clock A. M. All bee-keepers are cordially invited to attend. The Secretary, of Edgerton, Rock Co., Wis., will conduct the correspondence of the association.