PREFACE. 



This treatise is designed to make the practical management of an 

 apiary plain to those whose acquaintance with the subject is limited, 

 and to direct such as may find in it a joleasant and i)rofltable occu- 

 pation to a system of management which may be followed on an exten- 

 sive scale with the certainty of lair remuneration for the labor and 

 capital required. With this object in view the author has deemed it 

 best to treat the natural history of the bee but briefly, and also to give 

 little space to matters which are in question, or to different methods of 

 accomplishing given results, or to such as are only adapted to a limited 

 portion of the country, but rather to exi)lain one settled way widely 

 applicable and which will lead to success. The methods advised here 

 are such as the author has found i^ractical during an extended expe- 

 rience, yet in regard to numerous details many works — both foreign and 

 American — have been consulted, none more freely than Langstroth on 

 the Honey Bee, revised by Chas. Dadant & Son, and Bees and Bee 

 Keeping, by Prof. F. 11. Cheshire. 



IMany of the illustrations were specially prepared for this bulletin. 

 Some have been taken from publications of the Department of Agri- 

 culture. These include some of the smaller illustrations of honey- 

 producing plants and also Plates J II to X, which are from reports of 

 the Botanist of the Department. Plates II and XI, and figures 5, 3, 

 8, 44, 50, 51, and 76 are copied from Cheshire; figs. C8 and G9 from 

 Simmins. The Dei)artment is also under obligations to the A. I. Eoot 

 Company, to Chas. Dadant & Son, T. F. Bingham, Hayek Bros., Van 

 Allen & Williams, and Dr. T. B. Tinker, for electrotypes. 



Frank Bentox. 

 Washington, D. C. 



