Preface. 



"Whilst it cannot be denied that bees may tie, even proixtaWy, tapt 

 by those miserably ignorant of their habits and necessities, it is also 

 true that to achieve considerable succesSj and to make our bees our 

 companions and the ministers of our pleasures, we mnst regard bee 

 keeping as an art only to be acquired by attentive observation. This 

 art can indeed be learned by some more readily than others, yet there are 

 but few who, with a little care, patience, and painstaking, may not ex- 

 perience in a greater or less degree both the enjoyment and the profit 

 that are to be found in the possession of a few prosperous hives. That 

 knowledge and attention are of the highest moment in this matter ia 

 apparent from the fact that some will secure that gratification which 

 comes from the successful prosecution of a hobby with not small profits 

 into the bargain, in those very localities where the less instructed will 

 realize little but the mortification of continued failure with balances 

 persistently adhering to the wrong side of the ledger. The writer has 

 known of cases where, with the same individual and the same set of 

 hives, mourning has been turned into rejoicing when error and mis- 

 management have been displaced by intelligent instruction in correct 

 methods of operation. Much progress has been made within the last few 

 years, but even now it is true that bee keepers are the many, bee masters 

 the few ; and let us remember that there is no royal road into the ranks 

 of the latter — which can be reached only by time, observation, and that 

 natural aptitude which we call tact. We meet not unfrequently with 

 glowing accounts of the charms of bee keeping, amongst which the money 

 returns cut no inconsiderable figure. Stimulated by these the reader 

 perchance purchases 2 or 3 stocks,, places them in his garden, and after a 

 year or two of comparative or total failure gives up his bees, if indeed 

 any yet remain, as a delusion and a snare : a little proper instrxiotion 

 would have turned failures into successes and losses into gains. To 

 supply such help is the object of the following pages, which the author 

 now commits to his readers with the hope that their mission may ba 

 .abundantly useful. 



Pkank Chbshikb. 

 Alton, W. 



