Kind reader, I respectfully submit the following pages, and ask for them a candid and unprejudiced consideration. Read _carefully_ and _understandingly_, and apply to bee keeping, and I feel certain you will realize many times the cost of this book in the increased profits of your bees, managed as here directed. The statements herein set forth are the result of many years _practical experience with bees_ with a view of making the raising of honey for market profitable, and the general management of bees successful. MRS. LIZZIE E. COTTON. West Gorham, Maine, Aug. 5th, 1880. CHAPTER I. HONEY BEES. [Illustration: QUEEN BEE.] A SWARM of bees contains _one_ Queen, thousands of workers and in the summer season a limited number of drones. The queen is the only fully developed female in the swarm. She never leaves the hive except on two occasions--when leading a swarm, and when but a few days old, to meet the drone, or male bee, in the air, for the purpose of fecundation. It appears from close observation that only one impregnation is operative during life, as old queens have never been known to leave the hive for that purpose. The natural life of the queen averages from four to six years. Queens sometimes become entirely barren before death; at other times the eggs of old queens are found to produce only drones. No matter whether deposited in drone cells, or worker cells, the progeny will be drones invariably. When drones are reared in worker cells they will be very much dwarfed in size, notwithstanding the worker bees' attempt to overcome the difficulty, by lengthening the worker cells, to accommodate the monstrosities.