The proper estimate can be made only after a number of years, when, if they have been judiciously managed, and your ideas have not been too extravagant, you will be fully satisfied. I have known a single stock in one season to produce more than twenty dollars in swarms and honey, and ninety stocks to produce over nine hundred dollars, when a few of the number added not a farthing to the amount. I do not wish to hold out inducements for any one to commence bee-keeping, and end it in disgust and disappointment. But I would encourage all suitable persons to try their skill in bee management. I say suitable persons, because there are many, very many, not qualified for the charge. The careless, inattentive man, who leaves his bees unnoticed from October till May, will be likely to complain of ill success. Whoever cannot find time to give his bees the needed care, but can spend an hour each day obtaining gossip at the neighborhood tavern, is unfit for this business. But he who has a home, and finds his affections beginning to be divided between that and his companions of the bar-room, and wishes to withdraw his interest from unprofitable associates, and yet has nothing of sufficient power to break the bond, to what can he apply with a better prospect of success, than to engage in keeping bees? They make ample returns for each little care. Pecuniary advantages are not all that may be gained--a great many points concerning their natural history are yet in the dark, and many are disputed. Would it not be a source of satisfaction to be able to contribute a few more facts to this interesting subject, adding to the science, and holding a share in the general fund? Supposing all the mysteries pertaining to their economy discovered and elucidated, precluding all chance of further additions, would the study be dry and monotonous? On the contrary, the verification witnessed by ourselves would be so fascinating and instructive, that we cannot avoid pitying the condition of that man who finds gratification only in the gross and sensual. It has been remarked, that "he who cannot find in this and other branches of natural history a salutary exercise for his mental faculties, inducing a habit of observation and reflection, a pleasure so easily obtained, unalloyed by any debasing mixture--tending to expand and harmonize his mind, and elevate it to conceptions of the majestic, sublime, serene, and beautiful arrangements instituted by the God of nature, must possess an organization sadly deficient, or be surrounded by circumstances indeed lamentable." I would recommend the study of the honey-bee as one best calculated to awaken the interest of the indifferent. What can arrest the attention like their structure--their diligence in collecting stores for the future--their secretion of wax and moulding it into structures with a mathematical precision astonishing the profoundest philosophers--their maternal and