55^ 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 



(no queen, however, being in the hive in the latter 

 case), and it may be I shall continue to practice 

 contraction as long- as I live; but I must confess 

 that there arc to me unsatisfactory features about 

 the whole business. Mind you, [ don't condemn 

 the piacticc. I am only open to conviction, ready 

 to leave it whenever I find a more excellent way. 

 One objection that probably weighs more with me 

 than it does with most bee-keepers is the greater 

 tendency to swarm when the bees ai'e confined to 

 such small quarters in the brood-nest. I never 

 want any swarming at all under anj' consideration, 

 and the hive-vender with a non-swarming hive 

 would find me a ready victim. 1 have already men- 

 tioned the difficulty of having bees occu]iying only 

 part of the space under the super. Then, at or aft- 

 er the time of taking off supers comes the trouble 

 of getting matters in shape for winter. If seven 

 or eight frames have been used, the bees are likely 

 to be all right for winter when the supers are tak- 

 en off, and will do well in most cases if not touched 

 at all. If, however, there has been much contrac- 

 tion, the bees must be fed; and although I have 

 tried to reduce the trouble of feeding to a mini- 

 mum, still it takes time and labor. Of course, if 

 contraction gives enough better results to out- 

 weigh all the objections, then there is nothing to 

 say; but, as I said before, I am open to conviction. 

 Marengo, III. C. C. Miller. 



Friend M., I think I woitld fix this matter 

 by never reducing to less than seven or 

 eight combs. If this gives you too large a 

 brood-chamber, then I would use a shallow- 

 er frame. There are quite a good many of 

 the friends — Doolittle among them— who 

 think the L. frame too shallow ; but our 

 friend Langstroth made it sliallow for the 

 very reason you have given so clearly ; and 

 for this very reason I feel very sure we nev- 

 er want a frame deeper than the L. frame. 

 Ileddon and some others think, for these 

 very reasons you have given, that we want a 

 frame shallower still ; and I believe that our 

 friend Dr. Tinker is experimenting with a 

 frame a little shallower than the L. frame. 



FURTHER SUGGESTIONS ON MORRI- 

 SON'S SW^ ARMING-DEVICE. 



HOW IT CAN BE MADE TO REACH A SWARM .50 

 FEET FROM THE GROUND. 



R. ROOT:— You have given, on page 468, a 

 very nice illustration of the swarming-de- 

 vice I have used for some two or three 

 years past. I wish to note two errors in it 

 —one the small staple securing the rope to 

 the pole. It is not needed, and you will see it can not 

 be there. The peach-basket is represented as be- 

 ing fastened to the pole by two attachments. It 

 should be simply tied to the screw-ring at the top. 

 I will claim more for the device than I did. I can 

 got down a swarm clustered at a height of .50 feet, 

 almost as easily as if it were ten feet. 



In addition to the swarming-pole illustrated, I 

 have a good basswood strip 15 feet long by 3 Inches 

 wide and one thick, which I can secure by two 

 large screws to the top of the swarming-pole, and 

 with this extension I don't ask any better amuse- 

 ment than to bring down a swarm clustered on the 

 top of our tallest maples. The basket in the cut is 

 right side up. If the swarm is clustered on a large 



limb from which the bees can not be shaken, a 

 slight swing of the basket close to the limb will 

 generally (it has never failed with me) secure the 

 bees and queen. I need no help in securing 

 swarms with this device. 



Manum's device leaves nothing better to be de- 

 sired, where the queen's wings are clipped; but 

 many apiarists yet object toclipi)ing; and for the 

 use of the latter class j'ou would confer a great fa- 

 vor by keeping in stock my device, which you are 

 entirely free to make and sell at the lowest figure 

 possible. S. W. Morrison, M. D. 



Oxford, Pa., June 38, 18H8. 



THE LATE MAJOR FRANCESCO DE 

 HRUSCHKA. 



HIS invention of the honev-extractor; his 



PLACE in the APICULTUR.4L WORLD AS A BEN- 

 EFACTOR, BV CHAS. DADANT. 



fHE Major Francesco de Hruschka died in Ven- 

 ice, May 11, 1888, aged about 75 years, leaving 

 a beloved wife and several sons. Nothing is 

 publicly known, so far, of his birth and 

 younger years, the major having been very 

 reluctant to speak of himself. 



Fi-om information published by an Italian bee- 

 journal, L' ApicoUoie (August, 1878), it appears that 

 he served in the army, and, later, in the navy, of 

 the Austrian Emviire, the Italian province of Vene- 

 tia, in which he lived, being then under the domin- 

 ion of the Emperor of Austi-ia. 



He had attained the rank of major when he I'clin- 

 quished the service to enjoy the happiness of living 

 with his family in his home at Dole, near Venice, 

 where he kept a large number of colonies of bees, 

 raising Italian queens for Germanj^ and manufac- 

 turing hives and other bee-keepers" appliances. 



MA.30R FRANCi;s( n |.K IlKl -i IIKA. 



His increasing business compelled him to remove 

 to Venice, where he resided for part of the time. 

 The city of Venice is built on 70 or 80 very small 

 islands, which connect with one another by more 

 than 300 bridges. Instead of streets, Venice has 

 mostly canals, traversed by gondolas, which are 

 used as conveyances from house to house, instead 

 of street-cars or carriages. The city is separated 

 from the terra firma by a lagoon of shallow water, 



