274 BEE CULTURE PROFITS SUCCESSFUL YEAR. 



all to be depended on ; sulphur and gunpowder 

 are the only specifics. It has been ludicrously said, 

 that were the bee-culture, in a country like this, 

 carried to the extent recommended by our sanguine 

 Apiarians, the honey-bee would, in no great length 

 of time, become as great and dangerous a nuisance 

 as the wasp. 



To keep bees in the common mode of our own 

 country, and I suppose of all others, is an occupa- 

 tion of little trouble, and of trifling uncertain gain. 

 To manage the apiarian husbandry with effect, is a 

 work, although not of expensive outlay, yet which 

 requires much attention and indefatigable vigilance, 

 at certain seasons most particularly. Our country 

 labourers, who have wives and children to assist in 

 this business, are the part of our population most 

 probable to be benefited by it. It should be encou- 

 raged among them by their employers, and a market 

 always found in the parish for their honey and wax. 

 This, however, was, until of late, in few parts defect- 

 ive. Mr. Mavor, in his account of Berkshire, some 

 years since, relates that a poor cottager cleared in one 

 season, TWENTY-SEVEN POUNDS by his bees : such a 

 prize, I apprehend, has been seldom drawn in that 

 lottery ; but a poor family, with care, might almost 

 depend on saving the amount of their rent, perhaps 

 of their shoe-leather into the bargain. Rare in- 

 stances have happened, in our western counties, of 

 a hive producing forty pounds of honey in the sea- 

 son : twenty, down to twelve or fourteen pounds, 

 are far more in course. But superior culture and 

 attention will produce greater quantity of honey and 



