Bees for Pleasure and Profit by G. Gordon Samson is an illustrated guide to handling bees, producing honey and managing an apiary. This copy is the fifth edition, again revised and enlarged, published in London by Crosby Lockwood and Son in 1921.
The volume belongs to Lockwood’s Garden Manuals. It retains prefaces to earlier editions and combines a general practical handbook with a separate concluding part on bee keeping in hot climates.
Learning the colony and its equipment
The first chapter considers the natural history of the honey bee, including the internal economy of the hive and the roles of queens, workers and drones. A following chapter explains swarms and signs associated with them.
Samson then compares the bee races and crosses familiar to period keepers. These classifications and judgments record the vocabulary and preferences of their time.
The hive chapter moves from straw skeps to bar-frame equipment. Frames, floorboards, entrances, porches, division boards, roofs, quilts and the spacing of parts are explained with numerous drawings.
The equipment detail is a particular strength of the book. Readers interested in practical craft can see both the assembled hive and the pieces that make inspection and rearrangement possible.
Starting and handling bees
The starting chapter considers what to buy, how to hive a swarm and how to prepare foundation. Separate discussion addresses fixing foundation in frames and the use of wired material.
A chapter devoted to manipulation explains suitable conditions for working, protective clothing, subduing bees, smokers and handling a full hive. The author favors explaining a chosen workable method rather than overwhelming the newcomer with every alternative.
Illustrations support these operations by showing the equipment involved. This makes the book useful for comparing the practical vocabulary found in different British beekeeping manuals.
Two routes to a honey crop
Comb honey and extracted honey have separate chapters. The comb-honey material includes sections, crates, separators, supers, clearing bees, timing the removal of work and preparing the finished product.
The extracted-honey chapter discusses producing combs, uncapping, extracting and ripening. Drawings show uncapping equipment, extractors and containers used after honey leaves the hive.
That separation helps readers understand how the intended product changes management and equipment. A section of saleable comb has different handling needs from honey spun out and bottled.
The text also considers shallow frames, shallow supers and metal equipment. These comparisons preserve choices available to a keeper using the appliances of the publication’s period.
Increase, queens and the apiary year
The chapter on increasing colonies considers natural and artificial methods, feeding, brood expansion, nucleus arrangements and queen cells. Several diagrams explain how bees and combs are divided.
Spring, summer, autumn and winter management follow in a seasonal chapter. Topics include robbing, providing space, feeding, replacing queens, driving bees and preparing for winter.
A separate chapter describes the Wells system of keeping two queens in one hive. It broadens the volume beyond an ordinary beginner’s annual routine and gives readers another historical arrangement to compare.
Reported profits and labor expectations belong to the original text. They should be read as part of Samson’s argument for his practices.
Health and working in hot climates
The disease chapter discusses dysentery, foulbrood, remedies, disinfection and Isle of Wight disease. These explanations and treatments document historical practice and require current specialist guidance before use.
Final hints address clean hives, avoiding unnecessary manipulation, economizing wax, moving bees and other practical matters. The second part then turns specifically to hot climates.
That material considers thick-walled hives, frequent removal of surplus honey, managing brood, miniature frames and sections, nucleus equipment, incubator experiments and keeping colonies productive under warm conditions.
Later examples include appliances and observations associated with several countries. Their presence distinguishes this enlarged edition from a handbook restricted to an ordinary British apiary.
Audience and digital copy
This free ebook suits readers interested in historical hive construction, honey-handling appliances and the development of practical beekeeping instruction. The detailed drawings help match older equipment names to their forms.
The PDF contains 144 digital pages, including the original pale green cover, preliminary material, illustrations, text, index and publisher’s advertisements. The printed index ends at page 122. Enlarge diagrams and small labels when following an equipment arrangement.
Book details
- Author: G. Gordon Samson
- Publisher: Crosby Lockwood and Son, London
- Year: 1921
- Edition: Fifth edition, again revised and enlarged, 1921
- Digital length: 144 PDF pages
- Language: English
- File size: 3.72 MB
