INTRODUCTION 



Huber, the blind Swiss, who was ably assisted 

 by a devoted wife and faithful manservant; 

 as well as a host of others equally well known. 



No less great a personage than Pliny has 

 recorded his observations of the honey bee, 

 and Shakespeare also frequently mentions it. 



Of modern writers, Dzierzon in Germany, 

 Cheshire and Cowan in England, Langstroth, 

 Quinby, and Root in America, have added to 

 the rich store of knowledge we have on Apis 

 mellifera. 



The Belgian Maeterlinck is not to be taken 

 seriously in his interesting little book, " The 

 Life of the Bee"; for however attractive it 

 may be from a literary standpoint, it teaches 

 the rankest heresy concerning the habits of 

 these wonderful little people, and shows but a 

 .superficial knowledge of them. 



The late Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth, 

 known as the Father of American Bee-keeping, 

 was the inventor of the hive which bears his 

 name, and its almost universal adoption in 

 this country has wrought a revolution in bee- 



