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 pleasant and profitable occu- 
pation to a system of management which may be followed on an exten- 
sive scale with the certainty of fair 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 explain one settled way widely 
applicable and which will lead to success. The methods advised here 
are such as the author has found practical 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. B. Cheshire. 
Many 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 III to X, which are from reports of 
the Botanist of the Department. Plates II and XI, and figures 5, 6, 
8, 44, 50, 51, and 76 are copied from Cheshire; figs. 08 and 69 from 
Simmins. The Department is also under obligations to the A. I. Root 
Company, to Chas. Dadant & Son, T. F. Bingham, Hayek Bros., Tan 
Allen & Williams, and Dr. T. L. Tinker, for electrotypes. 
Frank Benton. 
Washington, D. C. 
5 
