OBSTRUCTION TO THE BEE CULTURE IN SURREY. 327 



apiarian husbandry, I find it very little attended to, 

 either by farmers or labourers. The whole attention 

 of the former is unfortunately absorbed by far heavier 

 concerns ; and the pauperism and demoralization of 

 the latter allow them neither ability nor inclination 

 for the pursuit. I am informed by a labouring man 

 in Surrey, who has a property in two or three closes of 

 grass, that in 1827, he (the only one in his parish or 

 vicinity who kept bees) had a few hives, but finding 

 a difficulty in disposing of the honey, he converted it 

 into mead, which he sold more readily, at eighteen- 

 pence the bottle. He experienced much inconvenience 

 and loss from the attacks and depredations of wasps ; 

 but much greater from those of distressed, but bar- 

 barous and vindictive wretches, unemployed and let 

 loose upon the country. They beat down and took 

 away his hives, out of mere wantonness and malice, 

 leaving them, with their inmates, spread about the 

 highways. He has since kept no bees. He found a 

 difficulty in supplying the bees with winter food; and 

 no hucksters, or dealers in honey, ever attended that 

 part of the country, as is usual in some, but at present, 

 few other parts. 



The following information I have derived from 

 Mr. Hagger, a considerable oilman in Lamb's Con- 

 duit-street, London. The previous neglect of the 

 bee culture, and the bad season of 1829, had so 

 reduced our stock of native honey, that a still greater 

 reduction was to be expected. Foreign import has 

 been gradually increasing during past years. Of all 

 the honey imported from the Continent, the French 

 is the most pure, far more so than our own ; which, 

 however, in quality, and for medicinal use, is found 



