adapted for apiaries, I have met with none worthy of remark?

The few miserable straw hives or skeps which are to be seen in every part of Britain, enveloped during the winter season in filthy rags, or covered with turf, or shut up in little wooden hovels, which have more the appearance of pestilential prison-houses than of the comfortable abodes of a refined and busy population, have awakened my sympathy for the poor bees.

It at once occurred to me that a treatise on the management of bees might not prove unacceptable to the British public; but how greatly was I discouraged in the prosecution of my object, when I discovered, that the numerous authors already mentioned, all of them unquestionably more learned and experienced than myself, have already discussed this subject in such a scientific and masterly manner, as to have left no department of it open, except that perhaps, which is more immediately connected with my own unfortunate country.

II. APIARIES IN POLAND: THEIR GREAT EXTENT, PRODUCTIVENESS, AND SIMPLICITY.

There is not a province in all Europe, that can boast of possessing such numerous and extensive bee-gardens, as are to be found in the

provinces of Podolia, Ukraine, and Volhynia, in Poland. The other provinces of my devoted country, although surpassing all the other countries of Europe in the management and extent of their apiaries, yet not being able to cope with the more experienced districts, have, therefore, begun to introduce that more simple and natural management practised by the bee-masters of the above-mentioned three provinces of Poland.

Austria-proper, Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, and Germany at large, where the winter is much more severe than it is in England, can nevertheless boast of very numerous and beautiful apiaries, which, although approaching in some measure to the less artificial method practised by the apiarians of Poland, are still far inferior both in extent and productive capabilities to those of the above-mentioned three provinces of Old Poland.

There are cottages in Poland with very small portions of land attached to them, on which are to be seen as many as fifty hives; while there are farmers and landed proprietors who are in possession of from 100 to 10,000 hives! *

The profit derived from the produce of honey and wax is very considerable, as it requires neither trouble nor expense to keep apiaries, but,

There are noblemen who possess from twenty to eighty villages. This accounts for the reality of the thousands of hives mentioned above.

on the contrary, affords amusement and recreation to the whole family.

It enables the tenant to pay his rents and taxes; to defray other domestic expenses, and often to accumulate handsome dowries for his daughters.

Should the season prove favourable, that is, neither too hot nor too cold, too humid nor too dry, fifty old and very strong hives, which can count a genealogy of centuries, will yield to the cottager from 100 to 150 new swarms, each of them of such formidable power, that it resembles a little cloud when hovering in the air.

In some instances they have not the requisite number of hands, or do not possess land sufficiently extensive to enable them to extend their apiaries, and are consequently obliged, every autumn, to beat out two-thirds of the whole number of their hives. The third part, generally the old ones, they reserve, as they call it for seed, from year to year.

There are some farmers who collect annually more than 200 barrels of fine honey, each barrel weighing from 400 to 500 lbs., and this exclusive of wax.

In the Moscovite provinces, bordering on the other side of the Dnieper, a river that forms the true boundary of Old Poland, and separates the land inhabited by victims of hideous tyrants from

the land of moral freedom, and which is named now Little Russia-provinces where the winter is very severe (the snow being generally about twelve feet deep), the beekeepers are obliged to screen their hives from the effects of the frost, from the first of October to the fifteenth of April, in large cellars built for the purpose; and there, notwithstanding all these obstacles, they are in possession of very extensive and productive beegardens.

Why then should not Great Britain, with her more temperate climate, her more beautiful landscapes, and more industrious agriculturists, rival and even surpass the country of snow, in the management and extent of apiaries?

The method pursued by the bee-masters of Poland in rearing bees, differs widely from that of all other countries. It is less expensive, and more profitable; less scientific, less artificial, but agreeing more with the natural habits and laws of the bees; and, were the agriculturists of Great Britain to take advantage of the experience acquired during past centuries, by the most successful beekeepers of Podolia, Ukraine, and Volhynia, and were they to begin by laying the foundation of their apiaries with only one hive, whose colony must be stronger than four straw hives taken together, I am fully persuaded, that in a few years, Great Britain would add to her

other honourable distinctions, that more ancient and once exclusive designation of "the land of milk and honey."

III. CLASSIFICATION OF BEES BY POLISH BEE

KEEPERS.

I have already stated that I consider it as a work of supererogation to dwell upon the natural history of the bee. There are in Great Britain numerous volumes, both English and Foreign, which treat of the interior architecture and structure of the cells and combs; the laying of the eggs, the breeding and nursing of the young, and every other remarkable phenomenon that combines the different orders of these prudent insects into a regular social community. I will but advert shortly to such observations as accord with those made in Poland, and that only in as far as they are really serviceable to the beekeeper, so as to make this little volume more complete and practical.

Some bee-masters of Poland maintain, that each colony is composed of three orders of bees; the Mother or Queen-bee, the workers, and drones. Others admit a fourth order, which are called Consorts. Each order differs in external character, and each has prescribed to it a distinct function in the community.