1898 



GLEANINGS IN BKE CULTURE. 



847 



liii^D: 



^EDrTORiAC 



I lay no blame to Bro. York, as it takes a 

 pair of sharp eyes to catch every error that 

 may creep through the stenographer's pencil. 



Eight extra pages this time. 



Do not forget to look over our remarkably 

 low clubbing offers given elsewhere, for we 

 can save you money. 



The weather in our section of the countr}' 

 has been exceedingly disagreeable. Instead 

 of the beautiful Indian summer which we usu- 

 ally have about this time, we have been hav- 

 ing rain, rain, rain ; and this, coming at a 

 time when we were trying to enlarge our fac- 

 tory, has put us back not a little. 



MR. cowan's terrible BEREAVEMENT. 

 The British Bee Journal of Oct. 20 contains 

 the following very sad piece of news: 



with the most profound sorrow we have to announce 

 the sad news that Miss H. M. Cowan, the eldest 

 daughter, and Mr. Herbert F. Cowan, the second son, 

 of our senior editor, were passengers on board the 

 ill-fated Atlantic lyiner Muhegan, wrecked off the 

 Cornish coast on Friday last, and that the lives of both 

 were lost. 



After receiving the B. B. J. the following 

 from the assistant editor of the paper came to 

 hand : 



Dear Afr. Roof: — The obituary notice on fir.st page 

 of our journal for Oct. 27 renders it unnecessary for 

 me to say any thing further here about the sad event 

 which called it forth ; but just when leaving I,ondon 

 for California, Mr. Cowan asked me to write you and 

 say how much he regretted that, under the changed 

 circumstances he would be unable to fulfill his 

 promise to call on several bee-keepers in your coun- 

 try, the family going straight through from New York 

 to Loomis. If you will, therefore, kindly make this 

 known through your columns, I shall be much 

 obliged. \V. Broughton Carr. 



London, Eng., Oct. 29. 



I am sure that Mr. and Mrs. Cowan will 

 have the sympathy of the bee-keeping world. 

 It is not often that we have to record any 

 thine so sad. 



A CORRECTION. 



The stenographic report of the Omaha con- 

 vention proceedings is unusualh' full and ac- 

 curate. I have read nearly all of it, and see 

 very few if any corrections to make. I note, 

 however, in the Auier. Bee Journal^ page 660, 

 in the report of this convention, where I speak 

 of the adulteration of honey and the difficulty 

 of feeding bees clear glucose, the reporter 

 makes me say this: ' ' We are trying every year 

 to feed pure glucose to bees. I learned this 

 summer that you could dilute it down with 

 water, and they would take it provided there 

 was nothing else that was coming in." What 

 I meant to say, and what I probably did sa}', 

 was that we tried one year to feed pure glucose 

 to bees, instead of our trying to do it every 

 year. This last construction might imply that 

 I had some sinister motive ; and after all I 

 have said against glucosed honey and glucose 

 in general, this would be rather a travesty on 

 your humble servant. 



FIRE AT THE HOME OF THE HONEY-BEES. 



Along about half-past ten on the night of 

 Saturday, Oct. 29, our big chime whistle gave 

 forth a blast that I knew, as I hopped out of 

 bed, meant something wrong. Going to the 

 front door, in my night-clothes, I saw the 

 flames leaping twenty feet over the top of one 

 of our largest buildings. As I stumbled over 

 chairs and oilier articles too numerous to men- 

 tion, I yelled out to Mrs. Root to strike a 

 light. While I was hastily putting on my 

 clothes, it seemed to me that the whole plant 

 would have to go in spite of us. But I had no 

 sooner got out of the door than, presto! the 

 flames that had been shooting up skyward 

 were gone. As I wended my way in between 

 the buildings I found nothing but a cloud of 

 steam, and I heard some one yelling, "Shut 

 off the water ! " 



Our factory building is patrolled nights and 

 Sundays by watchmen; and to make sure they 

 do not go to sleep, an electric clock keeps 

 track 'of their whereabouts throughout the 

 whole night and day. 



On the night in question, the night watch- 

 man, discovering the fire, called to one of the 

 men sleeping in the building, and the two, in 

 the space of two or three minutes, with the 

 aid of the big fire-pump (always under steam 

 pressure), fairly deluged the fire. But they 

 had no sooner got to work than the automatic 

 fire-extinguishers, or Grinnell sprinklers, were 

 in active operation. The automatic electric 

 fire-alarm was pealing forth its warning ; and 

 when the members of the Root Co. arrived on 

 the scene there were about a dozen men ready 

 to lend a helping hand, but there was abso- 

 lutely nothing to do. 



The automatic fire-equipment is so arranged 

 that it works mechanically, without the inter- 

 vention of any human being; and, even if the 

 night watchman should go to sleep, and the 

 electric time-detector should stop, this silent 

 watchman of the night, that never sleeps, 

 stands ready, not only to put out the fire, but 

 to ring in an alarm. We have now had it in 

 for a period of eight or nine years; and during 

 all that time it has not even had a chance to 

 demonstrate its ability to put out fire. 



The fire-pump itself is called a half-million- 

 gallon-capacity machine — that is, it will throw 

 a quantity of water equal to the average city 

 fire-engine. As fire is kept up under the 

 boilers night and day, the pump is ready for 

 instant service. 



BETTER GRADING AND HIGHER PRICES FOR 

 HONEY IN PLAIN SECTIONS. 

 In talking with our honey-man, Mr. A. L. 

 Boyden, who is also secretary of the Root Co., 

 he said several things about plain sections 

 that I think will be of general interest to our 

 readers. I asked him, therefore, to write a 

 statement for print, and here it is substan- 

 tiating another statement, by Byron Walker, 



