Could I disarm criticism as easily as I can deprive Bees of their power to sting, this would be the proper place to do so; though I am doubtful whether it would be well-judged in me, or to my advantage, to stay the critics' pen. But, possessing no such talismanic power, I shall adventure my little book into the world, without any attempt to conciliate the critics' good-will, or to provoke their animosity, conscious that from _fair_ criticism I have nothing to fear. That I shall be attacked by those apiarians who are wedded to their own theories and systems, however faulty, is no more than I expect: of them, I trust, I have nowhere spoken disparagingly; towards none of them do I entertain unkindly feelings--far otherwise. Their number, I am led to believe, is not formidable; and as gentlemen, and fellow-labourers in the same work of humanity, their more extensive learning will hardly be brought to bear against me with rancour and violence. Should any one of them, or of any other class of writers, so far degrade himself, I shall have the advantage of the following preliminary observation, viz. that one set of my collateral-boxes, placed in a favourable situation, and _duly and properly attended to_, for one season only, will outweigh all the learning and arguments that can be adduced against my Bee-practice,--will be proof positive, visible, tangible, that there is in my pretensions something more than empty boast. Luckily for me, there are plenty of those proofs to be met with in the country, and there are some--several, not far from town; they are at Blackheath, at Kensington, at Clapham, and at other places. As hundreds of the Nobility and Gentry of this country will recollect, there was one of these incontrovertible proofs of the truth of what I am stating, exhibited for several weeks at the National Repository last autumn, where it was seen, examined, admired, and, I may without any exaggeration add, _universally approved_. Practice, which has resulted from more than ten years' experience in the management of an apiary, and from innumerable experiments, carried on, and a hundred times repeated, during that period, is what I ground the utility of my discoveries upon. To theory I lay no claim. Born and brought up in the fens of Lincolnshire, where I have spent the greater part of my life amidst difficulties, misfortunes, and hardships, of which I will not here complain, though I am still smarting under the effects of some of them, my pretensions to learning are but small: for, though sent to the respectable Grammar School at Horncastle in my boyhood, my education was not extended beyond writing, arithmetic, and merchants' accompts. As soon as it was thought that I had acquired a competent knowledge of these useful branches of education, it was my lot to be bound apprentice to learn the trades and mysteries of grocer, draper, and tallow-chandler. Whilst endeavouring to gain an