Intelligent boys and girls of fifteen years and upwards will find a hive or two of bees quite within their power of management, and the clever and industrious insects will afford them a surprising amount of interest, and, it may be, some not unimportant moral lessons. In the hope of enlarging popular knowledge of these wonderful insects, and so of increasing apiculture, we have written this book. It does not profess to go exhaustively into the practical part of bee-keeping; but enough information is given for ordinary apiarian purposes. The excellent publications of Langstroth, Cowan, Cheshire, Neighbour, Hunter, Taylor and Wood will supply all details intentionally omitted from the present treatise. To several of the above writers, and to some others mentioned at the end of Chapter I., the author desires to express his obligations for numerous facts. Many of the most important illustrations in Chapters XI. and XIV., and the whole of those in Chapter XXVI. have been taken, by permission, from the diagrams published by the British Bee-keepers' Association. These diagrams are reductions from drawings made by Mr. Frank Cheshire, who is so well known as having devoted many years to the study of apiculture, especially on its scientific side. To the same gentleman is also due the discovery of many of the physiological marvels given in Chapters XI. and XIV., and of the chief facts embodied in the chapter on "Bees in relation to Flowers." CHAPTER I. HISTORIC SKETCH. Holy Scriptures--Vedas--Egyptian Monuments--The Koran--Etymological Considerations--Literature of Subject--Aristotle--Philiscus--Pliny--Virgil--Columella--Other Classical Authors--Shakespeare--Modern Writers. Far back in historic time there are records that man had learnt the value of the bee. The book of Job--probably the oldest of our sacred Scriptures--contains a reference to honey. The Pentateuch, the Chronicles of the Israelites, the Psalms, the works of Solomon, and nearly all the later books of the Old Testament, speak of these wonderful insects or their produce. They are referred to in the Vedas of Hindostan, the monuments of Egypt, the poems of Homer and Euripides, and the narrative of Xenophon's expedition into Persia. Throughout the ancient civilised world the virtues of honey were celebrated, and the habits of the bee served to point a moral for human conduct. It is remarkable that in the Koran we find Mahomet representing the Almighty as addressing this insect alone of all the creatures He had made: "The Lord spake by inspiration unto the bee, saying, 'Provide thee houses in the mountains and in the trees, and of those materials wherewith men build hives for thee; then eat of every kind of fruit, and walk in the beaten paths of thy Lord.' There proceedeth from their bellies a liquor of various colours, wherein is a medicine for men. Verily, herein is a sign unto people who consider."