URPRISING DEGREE.

If the bee had not such a necessary and yet formidable weapon both of
offence and defence, multitudes would be induced to enter upon its
cultivation, who are now afraid to have any thing to do with it. As the
new system of management which I have devised, seems to add to this
inherent difficulty, by taking the greatest possible liberties with so
irascible an insect, I deem it important to show clearly, in the very
outset, how bees may be managed, so that all necessary operations may be
performed in an Apiary, without incurring any serious risk of exciting
their anger.

Many persons have been unable to control their expressions of wonder and
astonishment, on seeing me open hive after hive, in my experimental
Apiary, in the vicinity of Philadelphia, removing the combs covered with
bees, and shaking them off in front of the hives; exhibiting the queen,
transferring the bees to another hive, and, in short, dealing with them
as if they were as harmless as so many flies. I have sometimes been
asked if the bees with which I was experimenting, had not been
subjected to a long course of instruction, to prepare them for public
exhibition; when in some cases, the very hives which I was opening,
contained swarms which had been brought only the day before, to my
establishment.

Before entering upon the natural history of the bee, I shall anticipate
some principles in its management, in order to prepare my readers to
receive, without the doubts which would otherwise be very natural, the
statements in my book, and to convince them that almost any one
favorably situated, may safely enjoy the pleasure and profit of a
pursuit, which has been most appropriately styled, "the poetry of rural
economy;" and that, without being made too familiar with a sharp little
weapon, which can most speedily and effectually convert all the poetry
into very sorry prose.

The Creator intended the bee for the comfort of man, as truly as he did
the horse or the cow. In the early ages of the world, indeed until very
recently, honey was almost the only natural sweet; and the promise of "a
land flowing with milk and honey," had then a significance, the full
force of which it is difficult for us to realize. The honey bee was,
therefore, created not merely with the ability to store up its delicious
nectar for its own use, but with certain properties which fitted it to
be domesticated, and to labor for man, and without which, he would no
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