This is a very interesting letter. Is it possible that the drones arriving from other hives, and entering when the queen was alone, were really suitors for her majesty's choice?
I do not like artificial swarming. I prefer to follow the instinct of the bees, not to create new relations: others think otherwise.
Brighton, August 30th.
Sir,—I trust you will excuse the liberty I have taken in addressing you on purely personal matters. Your kindly, genial letters in The Times have induced me to do so. We wish greatly to increase a very small income, and you have so strongly advocated the care of "bees," as both remunerative and agreeable, that we wish to try on rather a large scale. I should not have troubled you on this subject, as you have intimated your intention of publishing, but that I feared the season for procuring stock would be over before the book appeared. We wish to commence with not less than fifty hives; and, as many of the authorities we have consulted are very conflicting, I have taken the liberty of begging your aid in our dilemma. Might I trespass upon your kindness so far as to ask your opinion as to the best method of purchasing bees; also the best description of hives? With regard to their care during winter, and their general management, we shall doubtless be fully informed in your book.
Again apologising for thus troubling you,
I am, Sir, yours obediently,
A. A. M.
If you buy stock-hives this autumn, you must see to it that—
1. They are not very old.
2. That they weigh from twenty to thirty pounds.