to which my hive makes not the slightest
pretensions! It promises no splendid results to those who purchase it,
and yet are too ignorant, or too careless to be entrusted with the
management of bees. In bee-keeping, as in other things, a man must first
understand his business, and then proceed on the good old maxim, that
"the hand of the diligent maketh rich."

It possesses no talismanic influence by which it can convert a bad
situation for honey, into a good one; or give the Apiarian an abundant
harvest whether the season is productive or otherwise.

It cannot enable the cultivator rapidly to multiply his stocks, and yet
to secure, the same season, surplus honey from his bees. As well might
the breeder of poultry pretend that he can, in the same year, both raise
the greatest number of chickens, and sell the largest number of eggs.

Worse than all, it cannot furnish the many advantages enumerated, and
yet be made in as little time, or quite as cheap as a hive which proves,
in the end, to be a very dear bargain.

I have not constructed my hive in accordance with crude theories, or
mere conjectures, and then insisted that the bees must flourish in such
a fanciful contrivance; but I have studied, for many years, most
carefully, the nature of the honey-bee; and have diligently compared my
observations with those of writers and practical cultivators, who have
spent their lives in extending the sphere of Apiarian knowledge; and as
the result, have endeavored to adapt my hive to the actual wants and
habits of the bee; and to remedy the many difficulties with which I have
found its successful culture to be beset. And more than this, I have
actually tested by experiments long continued and on a large scale, the
merits of this hive, that I might not deceive both myself and others,
and add another to the many useless contrivances which have deluded and
disgusted a credulous public. I would, however, most earnestly repudiate
all claims to having devised a "perfect bee-hive." Perfection can belong
only to the works of the great Creator, to whose Omniscient eye, all
causes and effects with all their relations, were present, when he
spake, and from nothing formed the universe and all its glorious
wonders. For man to stamp upon any of his own works, the label of
perfection, is to show both his folly and presumption.

It must be confessed that the culture of bees is at a very low ebb in
our country, when thousands can be induced to p