File:British bee journal and bee-keepers adviser (1893) (19793025894).jpg

Title: British bee journal & bee-keepers adviser
Identifier: britishbeejourna1893lond (find matches)
Year: 1873 (1870s)
Authors:
Subjects: Bees
Publisher: London
Contributing Library: UMass Amherst Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
July 18, 1893.) THE BRITISH BEE JOURNAL. 275 of business, as being the best arrangement pos- sible for the purposes of trade. Straw skep-making—of which we are enabled to give an interesting illustration below—is on e of the few branches of Mr. Blow's trade n ot carried on at the " Works ;" the exclusive ser- vices of an expert skep-maker and his family, whose portraits appear in the cut, being engaged on this part icular work for the greater part of each year. After going over the various parts of the building devoted to bee-appliances, we passed on to another and important branch of Mr. Blow's trade, embracing the cutting and bund- ling by the ton of firewood for household chopping machine as fast as a man can " feed " it, where, being automatically drawn in and passed under the " cutters," a few of the noisy "thump, thumps," to which we have already referred, reduce the blocks to chips, and in this form they move along, only to fall into a series of baskets or boxes fixed dredger-like on endless bands. These rows of baskets are constantly passing up full to the top story, where, turning over, they empty themselves and return for another load. Thus an enormous heap of chips soon accumulates on the top floor, on one side of which are several wide-mouthed " hoppers," with shafts leading to the " bundling benches " in the room below. At each of these benches
Text Appearing After Image:
STRAW SKEP MAKING. purposes. This department was started partly with the idea of keeping machines and men employed during the winter-time, when the bee-trade is comparatively at a standstill. It is carried on at that end of the building by the engine-house on the left, and conspicuous by its greater height. Few would believe how much of interest there is in watching the operations of the powerful machinery and the many labour- saving devices necessary in the business of pro- ducing bundles of firewood on a large scale. First, there is a massive saw-bench, with its large, vicious-looking circular saws fixed three abreast, and making we forget how many thousand revolutions per minute; but they rapidly cut the heavy logs of wood (three inches thick) into equal lengths of about 6x9 inches. These lengths are then passed, end up, into the a boy is stationed, who, with an iron clamp or collar in front of him, fixes the needful quantity of chips into the clamp: this done, he presses a lever with his foot, which grips and crushes the wood close up, and holds it so. A single length of wire is then quickly passed round the bundle, and a couple of turns secures it. The finished article is tossed aside ready for " crating " by other boys at work, giving that final touch to the series of operations required in turning out a marketable bundle of " chips." Whether or not this crude description of what was to us an entirely new trade will possess any interest for readers of the B. J., we cannot say; but the hour we spent in watching the process was a very interesting one indeed, and we returned to town much gratified with our visit to the " Welwyn Beehive Works."

Note About Images