280001 8 Ap 24 1879 PREFACE. THIS record of a year's work gives the experi. ences and results of my beginning in a business which is to me a constant pleasure, and the source of a good income. Bee-keeping, by old methods, was believed to be ruled by chance; the bee-keeper who had good luck obtained some honey from his hives by the slaughter of his bees over the brimstone pit; the bee-keeper who had bad luck found. himself, sooner or later, the owner of a beggarly array of empty hives. Bee-keeping, by modern methods, depends not upon luck but upon knowledge; it is an art just as much as growing wheat or fruit or stock; the profits which may be gained from it are just as certain as the profits from any other branch of rural labor, and are much larger. |