THE present issue of our handbook may be fairly said' to be really a new work. Not that the greater portion of it has been consecutively rewritten, nor yet that the larger half of the former matter has wholly disappeared; but the additions of entirely new sections and half-sections, the transpositions with a view to facilitating reference, the erasures of what is either out of date or only repetition—in short, the thorough overhauling of the text from beginning to end—are such as to render the form in which it is now presented a new book rather than an ordinary fresh edition.
First as to our own department, the practical appliances. The descriptions of several hives and apparatus that have gone out of use have been removed to make room for the much larger number of new and improved inventions. Of the eighteen hives now described, no less than a half are new introductions, and the same is the case in greater or less degree with the supers, the covers, and the bee contrivances of every kind.
The chapter on "Manipulation" has been equally enlarged, having throughout been collated with the chapters on that branch in Mr. Langstroth's "Honey Bee." For very many valuable additions, both large and small, we are therefore indebted to that source, and we have also some obligations to acknowledge to Mr. Cheshire's "Practical Bee-keeping."
It is in reference chiefly to this department that so many transpositions have been made from the arrangement of the matter in former editions. Finding that by giving extensive practical directions under nearly every individual hive we were losing much greatly needed space by repetition, and at the same time giving less complete instructions to each, we have endeavoured when possible to comprise all this in articles of a general character, and to retain under special hives or appliances such only as was strictly peculiar to themselves. The system of references now carried out, together with the numbering of sections and displaying the numbers in the head-lines of every page, will we trust remove even that small apparent inconvenience which is the accompaniment of a large and substantial gain.
But perhaps more than all has the earlier part of our work been enlarged and emended—that which treats on the insect itself, its natural history, its reproductive economy, its habits, and its structure. For this course of improvement we are largely indebted to the very masterly and exhaustive treatise of Baron von Berlepsch, "Die Biene und ihre Zucht in beweglichen Waben" ("The Bee and its Culture in Movable Combs"); after this to Dr. Dzierzon's latest work, "Rationelle Bienenzucht;" to Schmid and Kleine's "Leitfaden;" to Samuelson and Hicks's "Honey Bee;" to Mr. John Hunter's very comprehensive and readable "Manual of Bee-keeping;" and to the British and American Bee Journals, the former for letters from correspondents, and the latter also for the very able articles by which that remarkably well-conducted periodical is distinguished. To Mr. Frederick Smith, of the Entomological Department at the British Museum, we have also to acknowledge our indebtedness for courteous personal communications rendered more than once.
Reference should also be made to aid in the translations from the German Treatises before mentioned, as well as to some other literary assistance which we hope has added to the interest of this work.
149, Regent Street, London,
August 1877.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
