PREFACE. VU 



Avhich has been written with an eye to their welfare, 

 and with the hope that the " finger-posts " herein set 

 np will guide many of them along the highroad to 

 great success in bee-keeping. 



There is no literary merit at all in these pages ; in 

 fact the author knows that the reader of taste and 

 education wUl find much to " wink at." There is a 

 great deal of repetition, and sometimes " nouns " keep 

 out the "pronouns." There has been the strongest 

 desire possible on the part of the author to write in 

 the plainest and simplest style and manner, so that 

 the most untutored man in England that can read, 

 would not fail to catch the meaning of every page 

 presented to his eye. The grand old words of the 

 grand old parable of " The Sower " are worth repeat- 

 ing in every preface : "When any oncsheareth the 

 Word, and understandeth it not, then cometh the 

 wicked one and catcheth it away ; but he that hear- 

 eth the Word, and understandeth it, beareth fruit, 

 and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some 

 sixty, some thirty." 



RosHOLME, Manchester, 

 March 1, 1870. 



