Item #14117 A Manual: Or an Easy Method of Managing Bees, In the Most Profitable Way to their Owner, with Infallible Rules to Prevent their Destruction by the Moth. BEES, John Weeks, oseley.

[BEES] Weeks, John M[oseley]

A Manual: Or an Easy Method of Managing Bees, In the Most Profitable Way to their Owner, with Infallible Rules to Prevent their Destruction by the Moth

Middlebury, VT: Knapp & Jewett, 1836.

First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. 3.25" x 5.5", pp. (5), 6-73. Rebound in modern quarter-cloth with paper spine label, marbled boards, new endpapers. Bookplate of most recent owner on front pastedown, minor restoration to title page, occasional foxing. The author acknowledges that there are already many treatises on bees, but finds them "not to be the result of so much experience as vague and conjectural speculation." In contrast, "the following work is comprised of a set of plain, concise, rules by which, if strictly adhered to and practised, any person, properly situated, may cultivate bees, and avail himself of all the benefits of their labors." Weeks (1788-1858) was the designer of the popular Vermont Beehive, an important modernization of the traditional hive, providing (according to a contemporary newspaper account) "an easy and safe method of preserving the lives of the bees through the winter without destroying any." This treatise was written to accompany the Vermont hive. It went into several editions and sold more than 20,000 copies, but the first edition is quite scarce.