PREFACE 



" Of books about bees," it may perhaps be said, 

 " there is surely no lack." 



Whilst it may at once be admitted that there 

 are many books dealing more or less with bees, 

 there is one fact to be noted about them. 

 They are nearly all intended as a guide to 

 practical bee-keeping. Out of a list of thirty- 

 five " bee books " which I have looked over, no 

 less than twenty- eight are practical handbooks. 

 Five are highly scientific works, and the other 

 two are almost of a metaphysical nature, in that 

 the bees are only used as a peg on which to hang 

 a dissertation on human life and conduct. 



Everyone does not want to keep bees ; few 

 people feel intensely interested in detailed descrip- 

 tions of the internal anatomy of the insect ; 

 while it is not every reader who is pleased, on 

 getting half-way through a book about bees, to 

 find that under the sugar coating of a peep into 

 the wonders of Nature is a pill designed to 

 remedy the evils of Society. These are all 

 legitimate works, very good and useful to those 

 who need them, but, if one may judge from the 



