PREFACE. 



This record of a year's work gives the experi- 

 ences and results of my beginning in a business 

 which is to me a constant pleasure, and the source 

 of a good income. Bee-keeping, by old methods, 

 was believed to be ruled by chance ; the bee-keeper 

 who had good luck obtained some honey from his 

 hives by the slaughter of his bees over the brim- 

 stone pit ; the bee-keeper who had bad luck found 

 himself, sooner or later, the owner of a beggarly 

 array of empty hives. Bee-keeping, by modern 

 methods, depends not upon luck but upon knowl- 

 edge ; it is an art just as much as growing wheat or 

 fruit or stock ; the profits which may be gained 

 from it are just as certain as the profits from any 

 other branch of rural labor, and are much larger. 



