128 LIBERTY AND A LIVING. 



nothing about a vast number of stings. Ac- 

 cording to the rosy picture which was drawn 

 of my future, I should merely have to buy my 

 hives and hire a convenient place in which to 

 store the honey as it was produced by the ton. 

 I was told that any neighborhood where vege- 

 tation throve was good for bees, and that an 

 able-bodied man could take care of two hun- 

 dred hives with ease and live in comfort upon 

 the products of his little servants. The details 

 of the business were said to be easy to learn, 

 and its prosecution one long delight. In sup- 

 port of this story, I was presented with several 

 works by men who had kept bees and were 

 impelled from the enthusiasm which filled them 

 to tell the world how much money and joy 

 might be found in bee-keeping. One man 

 went so far as to give the actual amounts which 

 he had made in a few years, with fac-similes of 

 the checks he had received in payment for his 

 enormous shipments. According to his ac- 

 count, bee-keeping was the easiest, pleasantest, 

 and most profitable of all employments ; all the 

 bee-keeper had to do was to take out the honey 

 from the hive and sell it to the misguided 

 people who keep no hives of their own. An- 



