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 occupation to a system of management which may be followed on an extensive 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 experience, 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. R. Cheshire.
Many of the illustrations were specially prepared for this bulletin. Some have been taken from publications of the Department of Agriculture. 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.