Humanity to Honey Bees;: or, practical directions for the management of honey bees upon an improved and humane plan, by which the lives of bees may be preserved, and abundance of honey of a superior quality may be obtained. Sixth edition, revised, enlarged and edited, by the Rev.

Wisbech: printed by John Leach for the author,, 1845. Sixth edition (first 1832) of this celebrated guide to beekeeping, providing an illustrated description of Nutt's collateral bee-boxes, which he claimed to have invented. The illustrations show the hive in use, with a central brood box, two side chambers, and one upper one. In another illustration, the hive is spread apart to show the communicating slots and the bell jar above full of comb honey. The middle drawer was used for feeding, and the outer "block fonts" were movable and "so contrived that ten thousand bees can with ease leave their prison and their sweets in the possession of the human apiarian, without the possible chance of a single intruder forcing its entrance to rob the magazine or to annoy the apiarian" (quoted in British Bee Books). Nutt lived as a boy in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. He asserts that he invented his collateral hive before ever reading a book on bees, but there are two earlier descriptions of collateral boxes by S. White in 1756 and W. Dyer in 1781. Octavo. Original green vertical-ribbed embossed cloth, spine lettered in gilt, cream coated endpapers. Folding frontispiece and plate, steel engravings in the text. Engraved armorial bookplate on front pastedown, newspaper clipping (a statement on bees from the Quarterly Review) on rear pastedown, manuscript notes in ink on quantities of honey obtained from a hive in Chevening in 1849 on rear free endpaper. Spine ends bumped, cloth presenting very nicely, contents generally crisp and clean: a very good copy. British Bee Books 215.