Vill PREFACE. 
practical Bee-keeper, will purchase larger works, which have been 
prepared with a different end in view. Every thing has been care- 
fully excluded from these pages which does not bear directly upon 
practical and profitable results. In the construction of the Protective 
Bee-hive, asin the preparation of this volume, an attempt is made to 
render Bee-keeping, as practised by the author, a simple and _ profit- 
able business. 
Literary excellence has not been aimed at or scarcely thought of by 
the author, and has not probably been attained. ‘The object of lan- 
guage is to be-understood. If he has succeeded in this, he is content. 
It is no part of the author’s design to make war upon other systems 
of Bee-management. These have been neticed incidentally only so far 
as seemed to be necessary in pointing out what has appeared to be the 
best method of Bee-culture. al 
In a form somegvhat different, the sabstance of this volume has 
been presented, in connection with ample drawings, specimens of 
comb, &c., before the National Agricultural Society, at their second 
annual meeting in Washington; before the Washington Horticultural 
Association in the Smithsonian Institute, the Framingham Agricultural - 
Association, and other audiences. 
