At the time I have been speaking of, I had not read one single book on Bees; nor had I then one in my possession. Whatever my practice may be, it has resulted from my own unaided experience and discoveries. To books I am not indebted for any part of it: nay, had I begun to attempt to improve the system of Bee-management by books, I verily believe, I never should have improved it at all, nor have made one useful discovery. _The Bees themselves have been my instructors._ After I had so far succeeded as to have from my apiary glasses and boxes of honey of a superior quality, to exhibit at the National Repository, where, with grateful thanks to the Managers of that Institution for their kindness to me, I was encouraged to persevere, Bee-books in profusion were presented to me, some of them by friends with names, some by friends whose names I have yet to learn. I have read them all: but nowhere find, in any of them, clear, practical directions, how honey of the very purest quality, and in more considerable quantity than by any of the plans heretofore proposed, may be taken from Bees, without recourse to any suffocation whatever, or any other violent means;--how all the Bees may be preserved uninjured;--and how swarming may be prevented. These are the grand features in my plan; and minute directions for the accomplishment of these most desirable objects are laid down in this book.
I by no means maintain that my system of Bee-management is incapable of improvement; but I do think that the principles upon which it is founded _are right_,--that the foundation is here properly laid,--and that every apiarian, who may hereafter conform to, or improve upon, my practice, will be instrumental in contributing a part towards raising the superstructure--namely--an asylum or sanctuary for Honey-Bees.
I cannot close this preface without acknowledging myself to be under the greatest obligations to the Rev. T. Clark, of Gedney-Hill. But for his assistance the following work would not have made its appearance in its present form; if indeed it had appeared at all. He has revised, corrected, connected, and arranged the materials of which it is composed; and he has, moreover, gratuitously added much that is original and valuable from his own rich stores of knowledge. To him I am indebted for the selection of the Latin mottos. As an apiarian he is one of my most improved and skilful pupils, and bids fair to become an ornament to the science of Bee-management. As a mechanic he is ingenious enough to make his own Bee-boxes, and has actually made some of the very best I have yet seen. To his knowledge of mechanics it is owing that the description and explanation of each of the different boxes, of all the other parts of my Bee-machinery, and of my observatory-hive, in particular, are more detailed, clearer, and more intelligible than they would have been in my hands. As a scholar there are passages in the following work that afford no mean specimen of his abilities. I have only to regret that the reward for the pains he has taken with it must be my thanks--that it is not in my power to remunerate him for his kind labours more substantially than by this public acknowledgement of the obligations I am under, and of my sense of the debt of gratitude that is due to him.
