Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1917-06-24
POULTRY YARD NOTES.

No poultry business is quite right
until It stands firmly on a sure and per-
manent commercial basis. The man who
banks everything on fancy prices for
fancy stock-that Is. whose hope of
the future Is based on fine feathers
rightly arranged. without any regard to
the everyday country store and city
stall market value Of his produc,s-is
running great risks Of failure.
Where one keeps from a dozen to
fifty fowls In the little back lot. there
is small risk at any rate; for pleasure
and recreation are two Of the main
considerations. His living Is not In
volved. His eggs are not all in this
one basket. But whore 500 fowls are
kept. and a thousand or more are
raised every year. It is well to see to it
with utmost certainty,
Thousands Of people are cultivating
bees for the pleasure of It, Incident
ally. they are gathering a nice profit.
One good hive of the little honey get
tiers VIII store for your use from forty
to NIFTY pounds in one season. This
ought to be worth $3.50 In cash right
at the door,
One bookkeeper in the west worked
ms pee business up as side line till
enectiyely on lot only sixty by Ito
feet Honey to the value of 81. 400 was
produced one season. All the work was
performed mornings and evenings. with
the cooperation of an industrious and
sympathetic wife. Colonies are placed
in pairs. the two being only a few
inches apart Three or four feet at least
should intervene between the pairs.
Many hives close together in a contin-
uous row viii be likely to work con-
~ nm lit no
1t much more dificult to care for any
particular colony without seriously dis
turbing others.
Any poultryman has space for bee
culture to some extent. a pair OF
terfere with the care of the family
flock. A fve-acre poultry farm should
easily carry from fifty to 100 hives.
farm of from fifty to 100 acres has
almost limitless capacity for bee cul-
ture as secondary industry.
1t has long been known that fruit
culture and poultry culture go well to-
gether. Each one supplements the
other. But fruit growers have recently
discovered that the honey bee is one OF
their greatest co-workers in the produce
ton of the biggest and choicest crops
The little worker sees the snowy how er
at distance. and seeks it for the honey
that he can extract. He pushes reso-
lutely to the center of a fruit blossom.
sweet nectar which he sought, but also
the pollen dust. which somehow must be
borne to another blossom of different
variety on some distant tree. On he
goes. and without intending it, he bears
the pollen dust to the other blossoms
and the essential work Of cross pol
lination Is accomplished
1t has been proved that large or
chards have failed to produce because
Of the lack of the services of the honey
bee. When the apiary was esta blished
at the edge of the orchard, a large
fruit crop was regularly produced.
Fruit farms are for this reason taking
up bee culture as secondary and sup
Elementary industry. The fruit or
chards furnish working grounds for the
bees, and the bees do the vital work of
fertilizing the fruit blossoms Some
so per cent Of the work Of cross pollina-
ton has been found to be performed
by honey bees.
Thus 1t is seen how vitality the fruit
orchard and the apiary are related. The
poultry plant and the fruit orchard are
just as naturally and vitality related
The domestic fowl was originally a bird