THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



21 



feasoi. Get a trood photog^rapher to 

 do the work. Have the picture as 

 large as you can, 5x7 if possible, 

 and larger is better. Ask the photog- 

 rapher to use a small diaphragm that 

 there may be plenty of detail. Give 

 plenty of time in the exposure, and let 

 the print be made on glossy paper. 

 For such pictures as I think well 

 enough of to use in the Review, I will 

 pay $3.00 apiece in cash. 



»#*^k»^^»«V 



Tne Mating of queens in confinement 

 has been the dream of bee-keepers for 

 man}' j^ears. In a few solitary in- 

 stances it has been successful, the 

 most notable being that of Mr. J. S. 

 Davitt, of Georgia, as described first 

 in the Review, and later in Glean- 

 ings, A B C of Bee Culture, and Ad- 

 vanced Bee Culture. Mr. Davitfs 

 plan was that of flying queens and 

 drones in a large tent of mosquito- 

 netting. There were numerous im- 

 portant details that can't be given here, 

 but they can be found in the back 

 numbers of the journals mentioned, and 

 also in the books. Mr. C. M. Church, 

 of Arnold, Penn., tried the same plan 

 last summer, and reports the result to 

 Gleanings. He was not very success- 

 ful, only mating one queen in the en- 

 closure. He attributes his failure to 

 a very simple matter, the use of wire 

 cloth for covering the tent, instead of 

 using mosquito-netting. The drones 

 and queens injured their wings by 

 flying against the hard wire, something 

 that would not occur with soft netting. 

 Mr. Church expects to give the experi- 

 ment another trial next season. 



«^*««^rf»«»rf« 



Bottom Starters are recommended by 

 Bro. Math in his most excellent article 

 in this issue. The only object of a 

 bottom starter is to bring about, to a 

 certainty, the fastening of the comb to 

 the bottom bar, and if this can be ac- 

 complished without the bottom starter, 

 then it is needless expense. I would 



not like to say anything- tliat would 

 make bee-keepers more heedless or 

 careless of the manner in which their 

 honey goes to market, but thousands 

 of bee-keepers, myself among the num- 

 ber, have produced crop after crop of 

 honey with no bottom starters, that 

 Bro. Muth, or any other man, could 

 not say which was the top and which 

 was the bottom of the sections. If the 

 scetion is not filled full of foundation, 

 and the flow is not very abundant, 

 there is quite a likelihood of the comb 

 not being attached to the bottom, but 

 the remedy is to fill the sections y«// of 

 foundation. Let the foundation come 

 within a sixteenth of an inch of 

 touching the wood at the sides and the 

 bottom, and the comb will be just as 

 firmly and completely attached to the 

 wood as though bottom starters had 

 been used. If you can't get the combs 

 attached to the bottom bar without 

 using bottom starters, then use them 

 by all means, but, with mast bee-keep- 

 ers it would be wholly a superfluous 

 operation. 



What the Review Has Been and May 

 Become. 



Before starting the Review I had 

 often thought what a fine thing it 

 would be to have a journal that was a 

 symposium, the gathering together, in 

 each issue, of the views of the best men 

 on some special topic. When the Re- 

 view was started, this was one of its 

 leading features. I first wrote an 

 editorial on the subject, a sort of 

 "leader," covering the subject as com- 

 pletely as possible, and a proof of this 

 editorial was sent out to leading bee- 

 keepers, in advance, to give them time 

 to write, and any one of the great mass 

 of bee-keepers was welcome to write if 

 he wished. The best of these articles, 

 S3 far as room would permit, were 

 published, together with an editorial 

 summing up. Each issue was devoted 

 to some special topic, and decided the 



