70 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 15. 



we have weeded out all who have not given 

 entire satisfaction to their customers; but we 

 are quite willing to continue the weeding out a 

 Utile more if there is any necessity for it, and 

 of course we shall be dependent upon our sub- 

 scribers for information. We are well aware 

 that there are some bee-keepers whom it is im- 

 possible to please, and it doesn't always happen 

 that the commission firm is in the wrong by a 

 long ways. 



THE HOME OF THE HONEY-BEES AS IT NOW IS. 



Some time ago I promised to give you a pic- 

 ture showing the recent enlargement to our 

 manufacturing plant ; and in this number a 

 bird's-eye view of something similar to what we 

 formerly gave you will be found. The enlarge- 

 ment consists of the addition of a third story to 

 the wood-woriiing building — the bricli struc- 

 ture shown at the lower left hand corner (new 

 railway-switches and platforms noc shown). 



The first floor of this building, 44 x 96, is de- 

 voted to the manufacture of hives and hive 

 parts, and all heavier work; the second floor, to 

 the making of sections, brood-frames, and other 

 small hive furniture. In this room and in the 

 one below will be found something like *3.")00 

 worth of newly built special automatic section- 

 making machinery, all iron. A new automatic 

 machine on the first floor dovetails the planks 

 already cut into lengths, scores out the en- 

 tranceways, picks them up and carries them 

 upstairs, and hands them to a boy. This boy 

 piles them just back of the gang-saws, where 

 they are ripped up into rough section-strips, six 

 at a time. They are then transferred to a cou- 

 ple of automatic double Sanders that sand and 

 polish the strips both sides at once. After they 

 leave these machines they drop down in a heap 

 in even piles, and are then picked up by a 

 workman, and piled into a magazine of another 

 automatic machine that picks them up, V cuts 

 them, and spreads them out so that any " sec- 

 onds" may be sorted out and put in one box, 

 while those of first quality can be placed in an- 

 other. These blanks first pass out V side up, 

 and are then turned over by the machine so 

 that the other side of the section can be in- 

 spected before they are finally inspected as to 

 grade. 



In other parts of the room are different ma- 

 chines for doing different kinds of hive work, 

 which I'll not stop to mention. 



The third floor is devoted almost exclusively 

 to hand work — that is, the nailing of hives, 

 frames, boxes, pattern-making, and outside in- 

 cidental work in connection with the supply 

 business. 



One of the recent improvements added to the 

 Home of the Honey-bees is some $1500 worth of 

 new piping, and two new and larger exhaust- 

 fans to carry away sawdust, especially the fine 

 dust that comes from the sanders in polishing 



the sections. In order to turn out first-class 

 sanded and polished work it is necessary to have 

 a powerful blast to remove the fine dust in the 

 polishing. In connection with this piping there 

 are twp centrifugal dust-separators, one of 

 which is on the boiler-room roof, scarcely visi- 

 ble in the picture, and the other is on the three- 

 story wood -working building. 'I hey are large 

 cylinders terminating in an apex at the lower 

 end, some six feet in diameter and fifteen feet 

 high. The dust as it comes from the machines 

 is carried by the piping to iiie^e cylinders, and 

 by centrifugal force it is thrown against the 

 sides, allowing the air freed of dust to escape 

 through the center at the top, through a large 

 hood. The dust, as it strikes the sides inside, 

 falls to the apex of the cone at the bottom, and 

 is then forced over to the boiler furnaces, and 

 fed automatically above the fire, so that a good 

 part of the time there is no shoveling at all. 



Another improvement that we have recently 

 put in is what ire call our " hog." It is nothing 

 more nor less than a ponderous machine that 

 swallows, as it were, all short refuse edgings, 

 chews them up fine, and then discharges them 

 into one of the pipes connected with one of the 

 large fans. It is then carried by the piping and 

 fed automatically to the boiler-furnaces, the 

 same as sawdust and shavings as they come 

 from the machines. It has been found that 

 wood in a finely pulverized condition will go 

 further as fuel than in any other form. The 

 object of our hog is to reduce all edgings and 

 waste material to a pulverized condition, so 

 that it can be blown by a blast of air right un- 

 der the boilers. 



This same hog is no respecter of persons, dogs, 

 plank, edgings, or any thing else. If an un- 

 lucky dog .should get into its voluminous throat 

 there would be a shower of sausage-meat, in 

 the language of the boys, over in the direction 

 of the boilers. To guard against accidents to 

 human beings, the mouth, to carry out the fig- 

 ure, is muzzled, or protected by a guard. 



If you were to visit the Home of the Honey- 

 bees now you would see another novel feature — 

 the making of comb foundation on the new 

 plan, as explained in our last issue, or what we 

 call the Weed process. As I then explained, 

 our wax is sheeted up on bobbins, and then fed 

 from these bobbins into foundation-mills. A 

 pressure of the foot-lever starts the mill going, 

 when the foundation is reeled out, and into a 

 machine that pulls It from the mill and chops it 

 up into lengths just right for brood-frames or 

 sections. Mr. Weed just reported to me that 

 the cut-off machine is not only a perfect suc- 

 cess, but is now taking foundation from the 

 section-mill — extra thin, mind you — at the fate 

 of a pound a minute. 



In one of our Medina papers, the Sentinel, for 

 Oct. 10, 1895, appears a fairly written notice of 

 the A. I. Root Co., and its business, as viewed 



