4 
A YEAR AMONG THE BEES. 
in I shall try to tell honestly just how I do, talking in a 
familiar manner, without feeling obliged to say “ we ” when 
1 mean “I.” Indeed I shall claim the privilege of putting 
in the pronoun of the first person as often as I please, and if 
the printer runs out of higl’s toward the last of the book, he 
can put in little i’s. 
Moreover, I don’t mean to undertake to lay down a method- 
ical system of bee-keeping, whereby one with no knowledge 
of the business can learn in “ twelve short lessons ” all about 
it, but will just talk about some of the things that I think 
would interest you, if we were sitting down together for a 
familiar chat. I take it you are familiar with the good books 
and periodicals that we as bee-keepers are blessed with, and 
in some things, if not most, you are a better bee-keeper than 
I; so you have my full permission, as you go from page to 
page, to make such remarks as, “ Oh, how foolish I ” “I 
know a good deal better way than that,” etc., but I hope 
some may find a hint here and there that may prove useful. 
I have no expectation nor desire to write a complete 
treatise on bee-keeping. Many important matters connected 
with the art I do not mention at all, because they have not 
come within my own experience. Others that have come 
within my experience I do not mention, because I suppose 
the reader to be already familiar with them. I merely try to 
talk about such things as I think a brother bee-keeper would 
be most interested in if he should remain with me during the 
year. 
As I want to get down to bee-talk as quickly as possible, I 
think I’ll let this serve for both preface and introduction. As 
for dedication, there are lots of good friends I’d like to dedi- 
cate my little work to, but I hardly like to single out any one 
of them, unless it should be my blessed old mother, and she 
hardly knows a drone from a queen, so that would hardly do. 
On the whole, I think I’ll not dedicate it to any one. 
