Page:How to Keep Bees.djvu/153

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

CHAPTER X

EXTRACTED HONEY

HOW TO PRODUCE IT

It is certainly fortunate for bee-keepers that centrifugal force is one of the unalterable laws of the physical world. However, this force might never have been of any use to the apiarist had it not been for a certain Major Francesco de Hruschka of Venice, who is a most interesting figure in the history of bee-keeping. Next in importance to the invention of the movable frames by the venerable Langstroth was the invention of the honey-extractor. We have a picture of Major Hruschka in our minds as not only a brave man of war as indicated by his military rank, but also as a happy man of peace, who loved his hives with their little citizens, and who also possessed notable domestic virtues and loved the companionship of his children and was interested in their doings. For it was when his little son accompanied him to his apiary and, having a comb full of honey set up in a basket, began whirling it boy-like by the rope attached to the handle, that the Major discovered the honey was being thrown out of the comb by this action. Instead of spanking the boy as most fathers would have done,