26 THE BEE keeper's MANUAL. 



experimenting, had not been subjected to a long course of 

 instruction, to prepare them for public exhibition ; when in 

 some cases, the very hives which I was opening, contained 

 swarms which had been brought only the day before, to 

 my establishment. 



Before entering upon the natural history of the bee, I 

 shall anticipate some principles in its management, in order 

 to prepare my readers to receive, without the doubts which 

 Would otherwise be very natural, the statements in my book, 

 and to convince them that almost any one favorably situated, 

 may safely enjoy the pleasure and profit of a pursuit, which 

 has been most appropriately styled, " the poetry of rural 

 economy ;" and that, without being made too familiar with 

 a sharp little weapon, W^hich can most speedily and effectu- 

 ally convert all the poetry into very sorry prose. 



The Creator intended the bee for the comfort of man, as 

 truly as he did the horse or the cow. In the early ages of 

 the world, indeed until very recently, honey was almost the 

 only natural sweet ; and the promise of " a land flowing 

 with milk and honey," had then a significance, the full 

 force of which it is difficult for us to realize. The honey 

 bee was, therefore, created not merely with the ability to 

 store up its delicious nectar for its own use, but with certain 

 properties which fitted it to be domesticated, and to labor 

 for man, and without which, he would no more have been 

 able to subject it to his control, than to make a useful beast 

 of burden of a lion or a tiger. 



One of the peculiarities which constitutes the very foun- 

 dation, not merely of my system of management, but of 

 the ability of man to domesticate at all so irascible an in- 

 sect, has never, to my knowjedge, been clearly, stated as a 

 great and controlling principle. It may be thus expressed. 



■ A HONEY BEE NEVER VOLUNTEEES AN ATTACK, OR ACTS ON 



