A Year Among the Bees: Being a talk about some of the implements, plans and practices of a bee-keeper of 25 years' experience, who has for 8 years made the production of honey his exclusive business.
Chicago: Office of the American Bee Journal, [circa 1885-86].
Octavo (17.5 x 13.4 cm), 114, [14] pages. Illustrations. Index. Advertisements. Publication date from the author's Fifty Years Among the Bees, (1920, page 15). FIRST EDITION. Charles C. Miller (1831-1920) was a practical commercial beekeeper that specialized in comb honey production. Miller began as an amateur beekeeper. In 1861, his wife hived a swarm into a sugar barrel when it landed on their porch in, after which he expanded his business steadily. Originally a physician, but gave up that profession to keep bees and to write about beekeeping. By 1878, Miller's was making his living from keeping bees. He eventually settled in Illinois and expanded his honey farm to over 300 colonies of bees, and became North America's largest producer of comb honey. His books include A Thousand Answers to Beekeeping Questions and Fifty Years Among the Bees. For many years he was also a popular advice columnist for the American Bee Journal. Part memoir, part bee culture, Miller began his personal account of the honey business in 1886 with A Year Among the Bees, in which he announced he had "made the production of honey his exclusive business". Miller never made it to "sixty years among the bees", but what he lacked in originality with his titles, he made up for in descriptive quality. Miller included detailed measurements of his hives for others to use, and his later books include photos of beekeeping activities. Over the course of the next three decades the succession of Miller's bee books highlights not only his industry, but the importance of frequent publication to the success of his business. The famed apicultural library at the University of Wisconsin is named after Miller. Age-toning to the first two signatures, but internally clean and sound. in publisher's brown cloth, gilt-titled at the spine. Some mottling to the top edge of the cloth, otherwise very good. [OCLC locates twenty-five copies].
Price: $250.00