^x> I'RODUOTIOx,. 



xtEE-KEEPlNG : THE OLD AND THE NEW. 



Fifty years ago, Mr. Quinby, then a lad of nineteen, 

 procured his first hive of bees, and began bee-keeping. 

 He was wholly unacquainted with their management, save 

 with the simplest directions for hiving swarms, and the 

 use of brimstone for securing the honey, when desired. 



A practical, instructive treatise on bee-culture was not 

 to be found, and a periodical devoted to the subject was 

 as yet unthought of. The prevailing ignorance of the 

 simplest facts in their natural history, with the conse- 

 quent inability to rationally explain the causes of prot,- 

 perity or failure, was the foundation of a wide-spread be- 

 lief that " luck " was the presiding genius of the bee-hive. 



Signs and superstitions of all kinds were current in the 

 lack of more intelligent teachings, and the good old man 

 who warned Mr. Quinby against his habits of study and 

 examination into everything in and about a bee-hive, but 

 reflected popular opinion, when he said : "Your bees will 

 never do anything if you potter with them so much." 



In those days, the only hives were sections of hollow 

 logs, boxes of various dimensions, and curious cones built 

 of straw, which certainly attested to the ingenuity, if not 

 to tlie progress of the age. If honey was wanted, recourse 

 was had to the brimstone pit, and the unhappy bees were 

 doomed to yield up not only their diligently gathered 

 treasures, but their lives also ; a sacrifice to ignorance, 

 not without pareilel in the history of the human race. 



By and by, gleams of better methods began to dawn, 

 and the most enterprising saw ghmmers of a more ra- 

 tional system of treatment, which should secure the pro- 

 ducts without the destruction ol the producers. 



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