I cannot close this preface without acknowledging myself to be under the greatest obligations to the Rev. T. Clark, of Gedney-Hill. But for his assistance the following work would not have made its appearance in its present form; if indeed it had appeared at all. He has revised, corrected, connected, and arranged the materials of which it is composed; and he has, moreover, gratuitously added much that is original and valuable from his own rich stores of knowledge. To him I am indebted for the selection of the Latin mottos. As an apiarian he is one of my most improved and skilful pupils, and bids fair to become an ornament to the science of Bee-management. As a mechanic he is ingenious enough to make his own Bee-boxes, and has actually made some of the very best I have yet seen. To his knowledge of mechanics it is owing that the description and explanation of each of the different boxes, of all the other parts of my Bee-machinery, and of my observatory-hive, in particular, are more detailed, clearer, and more intelligible than they would have been in my hands. As a scholar there are passages in the following work that afford no mean specimen of his abilities. I have only to regret that the reward for the pains he has taken with it must be my thanks--that it is not in my power to remunerate him for his kind labours more substantially than by this public acknowledgement of the obligations I am under, and of my sense of the debt of gratitude that is due to him. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. "Out of print," though a somewhat laconic, might be a not inappropriate preface to this second edition, and of itself a quaint apology for its appearance. _Out of print_ is certainly exhilarating news to the author anxious for the success of a work inculcating a new system of Bee-management, in which not only is his reputation as an apiarian involved and evolved, but, it may be, the very means of his subsistence are _bound up_ in it; the oftener therefore he hears the bibliopolist expression--_out of print_--the more animating and welcome it becomes; because its reiteration can hardly fail to be considered by him an indication that the demand for his book continues.--that his system is progressing,--or, at any rate, that either curiosity respecting it, or some higher and more laudable motive, is still existent in the public mind. Thus cheered on, thus, as it were, _encored_, it has become his duty to the public no less than to himself to proceed forthwith to the publication of a new edition. Previously, however, to stating what alterations, emendations, &c. have been introduced in order to render the work, as far as I am yet able to render it, worthy a continuance of public patronage, I consider it to be my duty to record my grateful thanks for the success and encouragement I have already received.