102 Bagster^s Management of Bees. 



as the title of his book shows, to those kinds of plans or maps 

 given by land-surveyors, surveyors of mines, and more especially 

 by landscape-gardeners. For the purpose of the latter, isome- 

 trical projection is as admirably adapted as it is for architecture ; 

 and w^e cannot but recommend Mr. Sopwith's work most strongly, 

 both to gardeners and land-surveyors. To land and mine sur- 

 veyors it is, indeed, indispensable ; nothing of equal importance 

 to it having appeared since Mr. Horner published his Improved 

 Method of Land- Surveying in 1810. 



Bagster, Samuel, jun, : The Management of Bees ; with a De- 

 scription of the " Ladies' Safety Hive." 12mo, 40 wood 

 engravings. London, 1834.. 



The publications on bees, as every gardener knows, have 

 been sufficiently numerous of late years. Many of them are 

 ingenious, though but a few have been of any practical use. 

 The great object is, to reduce the management of bees to a few 

 simple general principles. Among these may be included the 

 principle of limiting the increase of numbers to the quantity of 

 food ; that is, to the flowers which the given locality affords. 

 This, Mr. Nutt and Mr. Bagster have proved, is to be done by 

 keeping the bees moderately cool, and thus preventing them 

 from swarming. A second principle is, to keep the bees con- 

 stantly working; and this is effected by the operation of the first 

 principle, and by depriving them of their honey as it is produced. 

 The remaining principle is, to preserve and improve the cultivated 

 variety of bee. This is done by never allowing them to be 

 starved for want of food ; and by never allowing the larvae to be 

 reared in old cells. These cells become smaller with age, in 

 consequence of the thickening of their sides, owing to every 

 larva hatched in each leaving the membranous covering that 

 had invested it behind it in the cell ; and the smaller they are, 

 the smaller will be the bees produced in them. We merely 

 throw out these ideas, to show what we mean by general prin- 

 ciples; and to remind gardeners that there is such a thing 

 as cultivation and improvement in insects as well as in plants. 

 We are, perhaps, too apt, when seeking for principles of culti- 

 vation, whether of animals or vegetables, to rely on the efficiency 

 of imitating nature; but neither in the useful nor in the fine 

 arts must the principle of imitating nature be confounded with 

 the power of making fac-similes of her productions. The object 

 of cultivation is to improve, not to reproduce : improvement is 

 alteration ; and how is alteration, as an end, to be effected, with- 

 out alteration as a means? We are not quite sure that Mr. 

 Bagster's mode is the best hitherto discovered for cultivating the 

 bee ; but we certainly think it appears to be so : and we most 

 cordially i^ecommend his book to every one who wishes to prac- 

 tise bee culture on improved and rational principles. 



