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Hardwood Record — Veneer & Panel Section 



January 10, 1919 



there's going to be hell to pay and no hot pitch. Tell whole operation is orderly and clean. Not a drop of honey is 

 you about it some day. Sue sends her best to Min. Tell wasted. 

 the gang hello for me. 



Your friend. 



HEN. 



Veneer for Bee Keepers 



In former times they made hives for bees by hunting a hollow 

 tree and sawing of! pieces two feet long, or more, nailing a board 

 across one end for a covering or roof, setting the hive upright on 

 the other end, and it was ready for the entry of the swarm of 

 insects that were to inhabit it. The thing was generally called 

 a bee gum." There was not a partition or compartment in it. 

 The bees fastened the comb to the walls with wax, filled the comb 

 with honey, and the bee keeper harvested his share by prying 

 the board off the top and digging out a bucketful of sweetness, 

 bee moths, dead mice, spider webs, and unhatched bees. 



It was a crude sort of bee culture, dirty and wasteful; but it 

 has given place to better methods now. Improvements are largely 

 due to the use of veneer in the manufacture of beehives. The 

 hollow log which once was the home of the honey gatherers has 

 been superseded, rejected, abandoned, and kicked over the creek 

 bank, and its place has been taken by a clean, cheerful hive made 

 of planed lumber. 



The real machinery for honey making consists of small wooden 

 frames, three or four inches square, arranged in order, tier upon 

 tier and row beside row, inside the hive. These frames are made 

 of narrow slats of veneer. The honey comb is built in these 

 frames, each frame holding a square of comb, separate and dis- 

 tinct from all others. When the owner wishes to take his harvest, 

 he simply opens the hives, lifts out as many of the filled honey 

 frames as he wants, inserts empty ones in their place, and the 



PERKINS 



GLUE 

 COMPANY 



SOLE MANUFACTURERS 

 AND SELLING AGENTS 



PERKINS 

 Vegetable Veneer Glue 



(PATENTED JULY 2, 1914) 



805 J. M. S. BUILDING 

 SOUTH BEND, INDIANA 



The manufacture of the honey frames is an industry of large 

 size; for the frames are supplied by the million to bee keepers. 

 The best are of basswood which is preferred because of its light 

 weight, white color, and freedom from disagreeable odor and 

 taste. It is tough and strong and is good for long service and 

 is a guarantee of general satisfaction. Cottonwood, white pine, 

 spruce and yellow poplar are much used, and other woods occa- 

 sionally. 



Sheets of rotary veneer are the raw material for the honey 

 frames. The sheets are reduced to long, narrow strips, and these 

 are cut in proper lengths and each is made into a square frame, 

 ready for the honeycomb. 



When the old hollow logs were used for hives, and even when 

 rough boxes were substituted for the hollow logs, the bee moth 

 and other insects or reptiles often robbed the hive of its honey 

 and destroyed the bees. Such pests are easily controlled when 

 the thin, sanitary frames are in use, because the frames may be 

 lifted out and all intruders removed in a few minutes. 



Lumber and Veneer Compared 



Approximately 1,000 feet of logs are made into veneer for each 

 80,000 feet cut into lumber in the United States. When viewed 

 in this way it becomes apparent that the veneer industry still lacks 

 much of ranking with the lumber industry in point of quantity. 

 According to government statistics, fifteen species of softwoods 

 and 37 species of hardwoods, a total of 52, are cut into lumber in 

 the United States: while veneer makers use nine softwoods and 

 30 hardwoods, a total of 39. It thus appears that while the 

 makers of veneer use less than one and a half per cent as much 

 wood as the lumber manufacturers use, they employ nearly as 

 many woods. Veneer manufacturers use eleven imported woods, 

 which is a larger number than is used for lumber. 



Veneer is cut much thinner than lumber, and for that reason 

 it goes much farther in actual use, and though eighty feet of logs 

 are cut into lumber for one that is made into veneer, the veneer 

 is proportionally more important from the standpoint of use. 



Three times as much softwood as hardwood is manufactured 

 into lumber, but the proportion of the two kinds of wood con- 

 verted into veneer is very different, being about six feet of hard- 

 wood to one of softwood. The lumber manufacturer finds his 

 prmcipal source of material in the softwoods; the veneer maker 

 finds his in the hardwoods. 



Most of the expensive foreign woods go to veneer mills and a 

 relatively small amount is converted into lumber. Mahogany, 

 which is the most important foreign wood brought to the United 

 States, is divided nearly equally between lumber and veneer, but 

 veneer gets the larger part; while Spanish cedar, the second for- 

 eign wood in point of quantity, is all made into veneer. Records 

 don t show that any of it is sawed into lumber. Though the name 

 indicates that Spanish cedar is a softwood, it is not. It is as much 

 a hardwood as mahogany, though not quite so hard. 



The Origin of Veneer Panels 



The origin of the veneer panel dates back a long time in the 

 past, and the first cross-banding seems not to have been done 

 with sheets of wood, but with sheets cut from the stem of a plant 

 known in Egypt as papyrus. The plant has a triangular stem 

 which was split in very thin sheets and layers were placed at right 

 angles. The substance was soft and pressure was applied to 

 make the layers stick together. No glue was needed. The small 

 panels thus made were used as we use writing paper, and some of 

 the oldest manuscripts in the world are on them. The idea of 

 the veneer panel of two, three, or more plies, was present. Pres. 

 sure IS now applied in the panel factory to cause the wooden 

 sheets to join with the glue spread between them. Sheets of 

 papyrus had adhesive substance in them to take the place of glue. 



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