FOREWORD 



Tpie author's earliest recollections are of days with his 

 grandfather among the bees. One of the proudest days of his 

 whole life was the first time he was permitted to cut a limb 

 from an apple tree on which a swarm had clustered. 



With a lifetime of intimate association with the bees and 

 a wide acquaintance among the bee-keepers of the nation, it may 

 not be regarded as surprising that he should undertake to set 

 down in this book the information gleaned from so mam^ sources. 



In no other 2mrsuit, perhaps, do the originators' names cling 

 to the articles of equipment or methods of nianij)ulation, as in 

 bee-keeping. Most of the articles of equipment, as well as- 

 methods in common use, bear the name of the man with whom 

 they originated — the Langstroth hive. Porter bee escape, Alex- 

 ander feeder, Root smoker, Miller queen cage, and so on through- 

 out the entire field of apiculture. So firmly established has this 

 custom become, that a writer is in danger of being accused of 

 plagiarism if he describes a method without the originator's name 

 in connection. While the author has followed the usual custom, 

 in the main, some methods have become so generally adopted 

 that it hardly seems necessary to continue the practice. It is 

 not with any intention of claiming as original any of these plans 

 that the originator's name has occasionally been omitted, but 

 rather because it does not seem needful with matters so fully 

 credited already. 



While the author believes that a few minor methods herein 

 described are original Avith him, this book is not presented for 

 the purpose of exploiting original material, but rather to de- 



