AUGUST 15, 1915 



655 



conveniions. and edited the California de- 

 partment in Gleanings; and wlien the A. 

 1. Root Co. established a branch office in 

 San Francisco she was g^iven charge of it 

 by our ^Ir. Boyden, who established it. She 

 continued as manager up to the time of her 

 deatli. which occurred May 30, 1915. 



It was our privilege to visit Mrs, Acklin 

 in her home at Oakland in our recent trip 

 to California. We came to know more and 

 more of her sterling worth, not only as a 

 business woman and manager of our branch 

 office at San Francisco, but as a careful 

 mother of an attractive daughter of refine- 

 ment and education, and a beekeeper of 

 considerable experience. In fact, we doubt 

 if there is another young woman in tho 

 country who knows the theory and practica 

 of the keeping of bees better than Etliel 

 Acklin. or, to speak more exactly, Mrs. 

 Ethel Calvert. 



Perhaps at tliis point it might not be 

 inappropriate to speak of a little romance 

 tliat ended very happilj'. Howard R. Cal- 

 A'ert, son of J. T. Calvert, treasurer of the 

 A. I. Root Co., last winter was looking after 

 the A. I. Root Company's exhibits, both at 

 San Diego and also at San Francisco expo- 

 sitions. It was during one of the visits to 

 the latter city tliat he became ac(|uainted 

 with Miss Acklin. This was some time be- 

 fore the death of her mother. Howard 

 sliowed a wonderful adaptability in the 

 matter of helping Ethel to wash dishes. He 

 :-aid he used to help his mo!l:er in the same 

 way. but we never saw him. ^.latters took 

 their usual course. Before we left Califor- 

 nia the young man announced their en- 

 gagement. He hoped we would " fix it up " 

 with mother and father, and of course we 

 did. It is needless to say that the job was 

 easy, for Ethel and her parents had long 

 been regarded as a part of the Root estab- 

 lishment. Thei'e is a '" whole lot more " we 

 might tell of the courtship of the young 

 people, but what's the use? It's the same 

 old story — an ever lingering dream to some 

 of us who have been there. 



Veiy soon sorrow came into the heart of 

 the young woman. Her mother kept up 

 with her work until Avithin a week of her 

 death, and then passed away. The daughter 

 bore up bravely, notwithstanding her 

 mother was the last suninng relatiAC. 

 Shortly after, the young people came east 

 and were married June 26 at I he home of 

 the groom's parents. 



They are now in charge of tlie San Fran- 

 cisco office, where both are taking hold of 

 life's realities as well as of an active busi- 

 ness career, but Ethel is the beeman of the 

 establishment. 



Sandpaper or a Knife for Cleaning or 

 Scraping Sections; a Lively Discus- 

 t^ion between Two Authorities, both 

 of whom have Scraped many Thou- 

 sands of Sections 



Something like two montlis ago we sent 

 to Dr. C. C. Miller a new scraping-knife — 

 one that we thought would do good work in 

 scraping sections. We said it could be se- 

 cured at a very low price, and we wondered 

 if it would not make a good tool for bee- 

 keepers. In reply to this, Dr. Miller wrote : 



Your inquiry concerning a knife for scraping 

 sections leads me to say that "in this locality" a 

 scraping-knife is a matter of little interest. Years 

 ago we began using sandpaper in connection with 

 the knife, gradually using the knife less and the 

 sandpaper more; and a final suggestion from Allen 

 Latham threw the knife almost out of use. The 

 sections are taken from the T super, wedged up 

 in a frame that is a little larger than the super and 

 a little shallower; the roughest part of the propolis 

 is taken off the bottoms of the sections with a 

 scraper, but the chief part of the cleaning is done 

 with No. 2 sandpaper. Then the whole thing is 

 turned over, and the tops are cleaned the same way. 

 As formerly done, the knife did all the rest, each 

 individual section liuving its edges scraped, and what- 

 ever was necessax-y on any of the four sides. But 

 when the Allen Latham suggestion came into play, 

 the knife was discarded entirely for this individual 

 section work, and it is all done with sandpaper. A 

 sheet of sandpaper lies on the table, the sand up, 

 and on this the section is laid flat. A few motion.s 

 clean all four edges, doinig the work in one-fourth 

 the time the knife would do it, and perhaps doing 

 it better. Any cleaning needed on the sides is done 

 the same way. Of course, it uses up sandpaper, 

 but, as Mr. Latham said, " There's plenty of sand- 

 paper." 



If cleaning must be done when it is very warm, 

 then the knife has its innings, for to do good work 

 with srindpaper it should be cool enough for the 

 propolis to incline to brittleness. But generally 

 there are more or less cool days, and one can take 

 advantage of cool mornings. 



We like the sandpaper ever so much better than 

 the knife. Besides the important saving of time, 

 the work is done more thoroughly. The sandpaper 

 doesn't «kip places as a knife can. Those, how- 

 ever. wJio have bulging sections produced without 

 separators will need a knife for scraping edges. 

 Possibly there might be some trouble with plain 

 sections. C. C. Miller. 



Dr. Miller's allusion to sandpaper im- 

 mediately interested us. We remembered 

 that it had been mentioned before, but our 

 experience with it had not been entirely sat- 

 isfacton\ Our sections of honey coming 

 in by the carload are scraped by us in the 

 good old-fashioned way Avith a knife. Fear- 

 ing we might have condemned sandpaper 

 too hastily we submitted Dr. Miller's letter 

 to the foreman of our honey department, 

 ■Mr. -Tulius F. Gayer, and here is what he 

 wrote : 



This plan of sanding sections might be faster, 

 but we don't like the work it does. It fills the paper 

 very rapidly. If a drop of honey gets on the paper 



