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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Bee Hunter, by George Harold
-Edgell
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: The Bee Hunter
-
-Author: George Harold Edgell
-
-Release Date: July 10, 2021 [eBook #65820]
-
-Language: English
-
-Produced by: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed
-             Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was
-             produced from images made available by the HathiTrust
-             Digital Library.)
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEE HUNTER ***
-
-
-
-
-
-_THE BEE HUNTER_
-
-
-
-
-  _The_ BEE HUNTER
-
-  By GEORGE HAROLD EDGELL
-
-  [Illustration]
-
-  1949
-
-  HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
-  CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
-
-
-  Copyright 1949
-  BY GEORGE HAROLD EDGELL
-
-  _Printed at_ UNIVERSITY PRESS, INC.
-  CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, U. S. A.
-
-  LONDON: GEOFFREY CUMBERLEGE
-  OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-THE BEE HUNTER
-
-
-This little treatise is in part the child of frustration, in part
-the child of irritation. In a modest way, the writer has been an
-author. The first book he ever wrote, an opus of several chapters,
-was called “The Bee Hunter.” The writer was then eighteen. Submitted,
-on the advice of the late Robert W. Chambers, to his publisher in New
-York, the young author was surprised to learn that his manuscript was
-rejected. The publisher tactfully pointed out that even the English
-translation of Maurice Maeterlinck’s _La Vie des Abeilles_ had lost
-money for its publisher.
-
-The manuscript was put away to gather dust. I believe and trust now
-that it is lost. It was terrible.
-
-So much for the frustration. Now for the irritation. Being an unsung
-author on the subject and, more important, a successful bee hunter
-of fifty years’ experience, the writer has read a certain number of
-articles on bee hunting. One appears every year or two. Starting with
-two essays by John Burroughs, one fact is common to all. They are
-written by men who never possibly could have found a bee tree, at least
-by pursuing the methods they describe. Burroughs came nearest the
-truth, but even he seems to have got his account from some farmer with
-more imagination than experience. It is time for someone who has hunted
-bees and found bee trees to write the facts. For bee hunting is rapidly
-becoming a lost art.
-
-The writer’s interest in the sport began at the age of ten when he
-was initiated by an old Adirondacker who had sunk to driving his
-grandfather’s mules in Newport, New Hampshire. George Smith, as I shall
-call him, was a character, to the youngster as fabulous as Paul Bunyan.
-He took his whiskey neat. He smoked and chewed at the same time and
-could spit without removing the pipe from his mouth. His profanity
-could take the bluing off a gun barrel. Withal, he was one of the
-kindest and most generous of men and a mighty bee hunter before the
-Lord, or the devil if one prefers. He introduced the boy to the simple
-equipment necessary for the art, and though through the years I have
-improved it slightly, the fundamentals of the few objects have remained
-the same.
-
-The most important item is the bee box. This one can make oneself if
-one is clever, or employ a cabinetmaker to do it from specifications
-if, like the writer, one is not. The box should be of wood, about five
-and one-half inches long, three inches wide, and three inches deep.
-The wood of an old-fashioned cigar box is an excellent material but if
-used, the box should be left outdoors some time to weather, as bees
-do not like the odor of tobacco. The box should be divided into two
-compartments, the front one open with a hinged lid. In the lid there
-should be a small glass window which can be darkened by a wooden slide.
-Between the front and rear compartments there should be an opening at
-the bottom two-thirds of an inch wide which can be opened and closed
-by a wooden slide manipulated from the outside. The rear of the inside
-compartment should be of glass, covered with a wooden slide which can
-be raised on occasion to admit light to the compartment. The box should
-be nicely and tightly constructed, shellacked after completion, and
-lightproof. Remember, it will be out in all sorts of weather and the
-older it is, and the more weathered it becomes, the better the bees
-will like it.
-
-[Illustration: A BEE BOX]
-
-Provided with the box, the rest is easy. One needs a couple of
-pieces of empty honeycomb cut square to drop easily into the front
-compartment. The best is old, black comb from an old bee tree, but any
-empty comb will do. For nectar it is not necessary to use real honey.
-A syrup of common white sugar one-third, and water two-thirds, boiled
-for fifteen minutes and then cooled, seems to be as tempting to bees
-as real honey. If one keeps it so long that it begins to ferment, no
-matter. Bees’ taste is not nice in such matters. Bees will cheerfully
-work the fermented juice of a rotten pear. As a refinement, it is well
-to provide oneself with a tiny bottle of the oil of anise. If used
-sparingly, this will attract bees, and the faint odor on a bee’s feet
-will attract others. When I say sparingly, I mean more than the word
-ordinarily implies. The cork of the anise bottle rubbed on the comb
-and the comb then licked with the tongue will provide anise enough for
-one’s purpose. More will make the bees quite drunk, they will refuse to
-suck but buzz around looking for the anise and eventually retire to the
-flowers to sober up, and you will lose your line. To fill the comb, a
-common eye dropper is very handy though not absolutely necessary. It is
-handy, too, to have a stand made of an upright piece of wood such as a
-four-foot section of a rake handle with a flat board nailed on top and
-the lower end sharpened so it can easily be thrust in the ground, but a
-stand can always be improvised using a young spruce cut off at the top
-or a few stones pilfered from a stone wall. It is also handy to have
-another small box with a lid, not a bee box, in which to carry small
-objects. The paraphernalia is therefore very simple, and a good bee
-hunter can get along if necessary with less. George Smith and I once
-started a line using an empty 32 calibre cartridge box and a bit of
-comb stolen dangerously from a nest of paper wasps. Finally it would be
-well to have a cloth bag or knapsack in which the smaller articles may
-be carried, leaving the hands free.
-
-[Illustration: FILLING THE COMB
-
-A medicine dropper is convenient when filling the piece of comb with
-sugar syrup]
-
-We are now ready to start but should consider the season. There is
-no point in going bee hunting if one can find no bees. Bees begin to
-work as soon as spring gets warm and continue until severe frost. This
-can be proved by examining any hive on any warm day, but what the
-bees are working on is another question. They are hard to find except
-during some definite honey flow such as the white clover season or the
-milkweed or the goldenrod. Especially the last two are favourable. On
-the bee box I have used for a good many years, I have scribbled the
-dates of the findings of fifty-six bee trees. Eighty per cent are in
-July or September. Only occasionally does one occur in June or August
-and practically never in October. July and September mean milkweed and
-goldenrod to the bee hunter.
-
-Let us assume that it is a warm day in mid-July and the milkweed
-is in bloom. We find a patch and find it teeming with honey bees.
-Incidentally the first step should be to learn what a honey bee looks
-like. He resembles a refined and streamlined horsefly and is totally
-unlike the fuzzy bumble bee that so many mistakenly regard as honey
-bees. One’s first task is to catch a bee. This is done by bringing the
-box up sharply under him with the lid open as he sits on the edge of
-a bloom and slapping the lid home as he tumbles into the box. It is
-not so hard as it sounds, especially if the bee is on a high bloom of
-milkweed or goldenrod. It is essential that the bee be caught. During
-the midst of a good honey flow a bee will never voluntarily abandon
-the flowers and go to a comb, no matter with what aromatic lure you
-may have anointed it. Forget for all time the accounts of writers
-who drench a handkerchief with anise and throw it over a bush near a
-stand with loaded comb. No bee would come near it. During a starvation
-period when flowers are scarce, especially after the autumnal frosts,
-a bee will light on the comb if he finds it. Ninety-nine times out of
-a hundred, however, the bees will be somewhere else and no bee will
-find the comb. There have been exceptions as I shall show, but the only
-sensible procedure is to hunt bees during a honey flow when they are
-easy to find, and introduce them into the box by violence.
-
-[Illustration: CATCHING THE BEE
-
-The bee will be scooped into the outer compartment and the lid snapped
-shut simultaneously]
-
-Having caught the bee in the outer compartment and verifying the fact
-that he is there by looking in the window, the next step is to close
-the window, darken the outer compartment, open the slide to admit him
-to the rear and open the rear window. Seeing the light, the bee will
-promptly go in there, seeking escape. Then one can close the rear
-compartment and open the front so as to catch another bee. One can
-start a line with one bee, but the chance of success is greater if one
-has a dozen, and during a good honey flow, if the tree is not too far
-away, these can be caught in ten minutes.
-
-Provided with a dozen bees one is ready to start the line. Fill one of
-the pieces of comb with syrup. Thrust in the stand if you have one.
-Open the window into the outer compartment and the door between and
-admit three or four bees to the part with the comb. They will come if
-you open the window in front and darken the rear. Then put the box
-down gently, darken the whole box, put your hat over it and leave it
-still for three or four minutes. Meanwhile, fill the other comb.
-After three or four minutes, place the box on the stand and gently
-open the lid. If conditions are right, the bees will have found the
-syrup and taken a load in the darkness. Sometimes one or two will not
-have finished loading and will sit quietly until they are stuffed to
-capacity. If they are loaded, they will fly comparatively slowly as
-they take off to return to the hive. When they have left, repeat the
-whole process and let out more bees until all have gone. You are now in
-the stage of starting to establish the line.
-
-[Illustration: TRAPPING THE BEE IN THE REAR COMPARTMENT
-
-The slide on the side of the box is pulled to open the entrance to the
-rear compartment, the rear window is opened, and the bee follows the
-light into the rear compartment]
-
-Where most of the nature fakers fall down conspicuously is in
-describing how to establish a “bee line” giving the exact direction
-of the bee tree. Actually, when a bee leaves for the first time he is
-both suspicious and anxious to establish the position of the stand. He
-leaves in slowly expanding spirals and figure eights. The hunter rolls
-round on his back trying to follow the convolutions of the bee flight
-in the air. Usually it ends by the bee flying between the eye and the
-sun and thus being lost to view. If the hunter can establish when the
-bee leaves for the first time, whether the tree is more north than
-south or more east than west, he is doing well. It is not until a bee
-has come and gone eight or ten times that he becomes familiar with the
-stand, loses his suspicions, and, on taking off, goes in approximately
-the direction of the tree thus at last creating a “bee line.”
-
-[Illustration: LETTING OUT THE BEES
-
-Two bee boxes are on the stand in this illustration. The lid of the
-outer compartment of the top box has just been opened, and the bees are
-about to emerge]
-
-If conditions are right, of your dozen bees four or five will return
-for a second load. Again if conditions are right, in an hour or two
-these will communicate in some mysterious way with other workers in the
-hive that there is free lunch obtainable and the number of bees on the
-line will increase. Especially if the tree is near and the flowers
-not too profuse, this will happen quickly. At best I have had a hundred
-or more bees running my line half an hour after the first bee left.
-At times, and this is a common occurrence, no bee will come back at
-all. Sometimes the original bees will go back and forth but bring no
-companions. Often the bees will refuse to suck at all but will return
-on release to the flowers. When that happens, you had best pack up and
-go home and wait for more propitious conditions.
-
-Why bees will load sometimes and not others, fifty years of experience
-has left unrevealed. In general, bees run better at the beginning
-and end of a honey flow when the flowers are not too profuse and too
-plentiful. Certainly if you are fortunate enough to catch a bee after
-heavy frosts, yet on a warm day, you will probably establish a roaring
-line in a short time. Why, however, sometimes bees will load eagerly
-and sometimes ignore the comb is a mystery. No changes in the thickness
-of the syrup, no substitution of true honey for the sugar, no aromatic
-oils like anise applied to the comb will cause bees to suck if they do
-not choose. They will often suck eagerly in the midst of the heaviest
-goldenrod season and refuse to suck at other times when flowers are
-scarce. Nothing is more frustrating than to catch box after box of
-bees and find them unwilling to load. In such case there is nothing
-to do but wait a week and try again. The most important quality for a
-successful bee hunter is patience.
-
-[Illustration: BEES ON THE COMB
-
-The original bees have spread the word to their fellow-workers about
-the “free lunch.” The box in this illustration is the one used for
-storage of extra comb, the medicine dropper, the bottle of anise, etc.]
-
-Let us assume, however, that conditions are favourable this July
-morning. About ten minutes after the release of the first bee, a bee
-comes back. This is one of the most exciting moments in the hunt. An
-experienced hunter recognizes the sound of a honey bee instantly, but
-for the last five minutes he has jumped at the sound of every doodle
-bug that has flown by the stand. The behaviour of the returning bee is
-very different from that of the departing one. He dashes in circles
-round the stand, darts away again across the field until you think he
-will not return, whizzes back to circle the stand again and finally, in
-narrowing circles, poises above the comb like a helicopter, his buzz
-still shrilling. One waits with bated breath. The buzz ceases. The bee
-has come to rest and is loading. The line is started.
-
-Soon others arrive, and the first comer departs. Once more you try
-and take his line but once more he fools you as he leaves in widening
-circles. However, one has got the general direction and can take a
-position to see better. More information comes as each bee leaves. In
-an hour’s time the comb may have twenty bees on it at once and the
-arrivals and departures are frequent. Now the bees have begun to be
-accustomed to the stand and frequently jump off and fly straight so
-that in a good light the eye can follow one for fifty or a hundred
-yards. Thus you establish your “bee line.” It is never exact, however.
-No two bees have exactly the same idea as to the best way home. If,
-for example, there is a large tree in the direction of the hive and
-perhaps a hundred yards from the stand, one bee may bypass it to the
-right, another to the left, and a third may lift and go over it. One is
-constantly revising one’s decision as to the true line.
-
-[Illustration: WATCHING THE BEES LEAVE THE COMB
-
-The general direction of the bees’ flight has been established, and the
-hunter has taken up a position a few feet from the stand (_arrow_) from
-which he can easily follow the path of the bees in the air]
-
-By now we are ready to time a bee and see how long he is gone. This
-will give one a fair estimate of the distance from the stand to the
-tree. A bee takes between one and two minutes to load and as much time
-to unload. He may also have to crawl some distance in the tree to
-reach the place to deposit his load. He flies at about the speed of a
-human sprinter, say a quarter of a mile a minute. If he is gone eight
-minutes, the tree is not too far away. If he is gone twelve minutes,
-the hunter has a long job ahead. If he is gone four minutes, the tree
-is very close. The longest I remember having a bee absent and still
-being able to run a line and find the tree was fifteen minutes. The
-shortest was two and one-half minutes, and then the tree was actually
-in sight of the stand, though I did not know it at the time. Twenty
-minutes is hopeless. No bee will bring others back at that distance,
-and it is better to abandon the stand, move a mile or more in the
-direction the bee has taken, catch more bees, and repeat the whole
-process nearer the tree.
-
-In order to time a bee it is necessary to be able to identify an
-individual. George Smith used to do this by extracting some seed or
-pollen from the bud of a small mossy plant and sprinkling a little
-of the green dust on the back of a bee. At best it was an uncertain
-process as the dust was liable to be blown off before the bee’s
-return, and even if not, was hard to see. I have evolved a simpler and
-better system. To our equipment as already described, let us add a
-small bottle of water, a tiny camel’s hair brush, and a piece of blue
-carpenter’s chalk. With the blade of a penknife, scrape some dust from
-the chalk onto the back of a smooth stone or the blade of a hand axe
-if you carry one. Incidentally a small scout’s axe is a handy thing
-to have for clearing brush, making stands, marking the bee tree when
-you have found it, and blazing a trail from it if it is deep in the
-woods and should be hard to find again. On the chalk dust, with the
-brush, drop a few drops of water and stir till the water is coloured
-blue. Then with the wet brush dab the rear of a loading bee. This must
-be done deftly and gently. Bees do not like to be painted. A good
-hunter can guess which bee is apt to be unreasonably phlegmatic and,
-especially if one is loading from a half empty cell, with the shoulders
-buried and his tail raised, he can be painted without disturbing him.
-Once daubed, the new decoration does not annoy him in the least and is
-not noticed by his fellows. When wet, the spot shows only slightly, but
-by the time the bee returns, the chalk dust will be dry and will stand
-out like a beacon so vivid that it can be spotted even before the bee
-alights. We now have an identifiable bee and can time him.
-
-Let us suppose he takes seven or eight minutes a trip to the tree and
-back. One should time him two or three times to be accurate and not be
-disturbed if the time varies a little. We now have a bee line and some
-idea of the distance of the tree.
-
-Now it is time to move. One might ask why, knowing the direction and
-the approximate distance, one does not immediately hunt for the tree.
-The answer is that there are ten thousand trees in the woods and only
-one the bee tree. One can never be sure of the exact line or, with any
-exactitude, the distance. Sometimes when one has narrowed the problem
-to an area of a hundred yards square, it is hard to find the tree. So
-once more the bee box is placed on the stand, a loaded comb dropped
-into the front compartment and the lid left open. The spare comb should
-be hidden carefully. Great ire on the part of the bees. They again
-become suspicious and do not want to enter the box. As more arrive,
-the air is filled with a disgusted humming. In time the temptation is
-too great and one after another a bee drops down to the comb. When ten
-or a dozen have done so, snap down the lid of the box and drive them
-into the rear compartment as before. They are reluctant to go, but a
-puff of cigarette smoke blown through a crack in the lid will send
-them scurrying to the rear in search of purer air. Close the slide,
-reopen the box, place it on the stand and catch another lot. Catch all
-you can. Then pull up the stand, gather up your paraphernalia and move
-three or four hundred yards down the line. Then set up the stand and
-release the bees in batches of eight or ten.
-
-This is another critical moment. Will the bees stand moving? If you
-have mistaken the line and moved off it too far to the left or right,
-the bees may not come back, and you will have to return to the first
-stand and start over again. The same is true if the swarm is weak or
-the flowers too tempting. The time seems interminable. I have a theory,
-which I cannot prove, that on the first move the bees return to the
-first stand before investigating the possibilities of the second.
-Conditions are right on this day, however, and after a time we hear the
-welcome hum of the first returning bee, quickly followed by a second
-and a third. The bees will stand moving. Success seems assured.
-
-Theoretically it is. All one has to do is to continue to move the bees
-until the tree is reached or passed, in which case the line reverses
-and proves that the tree is between the last and the next to the last
-stands. If it were as simple as that, bee hunting would not be the art
-and the fun that it is. In the first place, in order to reestablish a
-line, the stand should be set up in a clearing. We have now reached the
-woods and possibly no clearings are available. Released in the woods,
-a bee circles up into the trees and disappears. Sometimes it is hard
-to tell whether he goes forward or back. The moves have to be shorter.
-Often if one moves beyond the tree, the bees will not come back, and
-you have lost your line. Above all, the lining must be straight. If you
-meet a swamp, you must go through it. If you meet a cliff, you must
-go up it. If you meet a pond, you must go round it and set up at just
-the right point on the opposite side. All this takes time. You must be
-prepared to spend two or three days before finding the tree. Meanwhile,
-as the tree draws near, the bees tumble out in greater numbers until
-literally there are hundreds buzzing about and going back and forth,
-and one has to refill the comb frequently.
-
-This brings up another point: the danger of being stung. The newcomer
-is apt to be terrified as the bees buzz round his head while the hunter
-is tending the stand. The answer I can give categorically. There is
-absolutely no danger whatever of being stung while running a line. The
-bees are entirely friendly. They will fight among themselves if two
-swarms are involved. They will fight a hornet if he has accidentally
-found the comb. The hunter who is supplying them with free syrup they
-would not think of molesting. The only possibility of getting stung
-is some careless accident. I was once stung when a friendly bee had
-lighted on my khaki shirt and, not noticing him, I put my arm down
-and squeezed him against my side. Naturally, he let drive at my ribs.
-The fault was mine, not his. One can even imprison a bee in one’s
-cupped hands and he will crawl round and try to find his way out, but
-if you do not squeeze him, he will not think of stinging you. I once
-was lining a swarm in the middle of the goldenrod honey flow when a
-terrific hailstorm came up and leveled all the flowers. The next day
-the bees were desperate. Their bee pasture was gone and they were mad
-for syrup. I soon had what seemed to be half the hive around me. They
-came not in hundreds, but in thousands. Even to an old hunter it was
-a little terrifying, but absolutely harmless. One had to exercise
-caution. Feeling a curious tickling on the left side of my breast, I
-discovered that some two dozen bees had found the anise bottle in my
-shirt pocket and had gone in to investigate. It was quite a job to get
-the anise bottle out and persuade the bees to come too, but I did it
-without accident. The only danger to the amateur is that he lose his
-head and try to slap a bee that he thinks is dangerously near his face.
-If he does, he may be stung. He ought to be. It is worth repeating
-because to the newcomer it seems incredible. There is absolutely no
-danger of being stung while running a bee line.
-
-As we draw nearer the tree, the moves are shorter and made more
-quickly. Now there is no worry about losing the line. Indeed, the bees
-not trapped will often follow the hunter on a short move and, as the
-imprisoned bees are released, others, arriving from behind, will drop
-on the comb. Now the hunter is convinced that the tree must be in
-sight. Usually it isn’t. As soon as it is established that the line
-still goes ahead, the hunter will go down the line, carefully examining
-every likely tree. This gives him exercise, puts in the time, and
-enables him to find a good place for the next stand if it is necessary
-to establish one. Usually it is. At last, however, one of two things
-happens. Either the hunter finds the tree or, after a move, the bees
-will be a long time coming back, or, if it is a long move, though it
-should not be, they may not come back at all. When bees have been
-running well and suddenly are slow to return, it is suspicious and
-auspicious. When the line is at last reestablished, the behaviour of
-the bees is odd. They will circle off in all directions in the most
-exasperating fashion. At last one or two will fly reasonably straight,
-and it dawns on the hunter that the line has reversed itself and the
-bees are going back. The tree is between this and the last stand. It is
-only a matter now of looking carefully enough to discover the tree.
-
-Even then one cannot consider the battle won. A bee tree can be
-extraordinarily hard to find. The likeliest trees are maples, beeches,
-and hemlocks, but the hunter must look everywhere. Smith used to have
-a theory that if the bees rose high as they left the stand, the hole
-was high in the air. If they pitched low, the hole was low. He also
-pretended to guess the kind of tree that the bees were in by the colour
-of the bees. Light-coloured bees were likely to be in a maple. Very
-dark ones might be in a dead pine. There is something in all this but
-not much. One time we were running a line of light-coloured bees that
-pitched high, and I told Smith we had better look high up in maples.
-His reply was:
-
-“You look high in the maples and low in the cedars and up and down all
-trunks and branches, hard wood and soft, big enough to hold a hive and
-you can be sure of just one thing. When you do find them, they’ll be
-where you don’t expect them.”
-
-A sound aphorism and worth following. It was this same Smith one time
-when we were fishing for trout and not finding them in one or two
-favoured holes, tried elsewhere in less likely places and found them,
-who said:
-
-“If you want to catch fish, you’ve got to fish where the fish is, and
-if they ain’t there, you fish where they ain’t and there they’ll be.”
-
-Of course, the greatest thrill of the hunt comes when one finds the
-tree. Sometimes it is abrupt, if the hole is in an unshaded limb or
-bole in plain view. More often it is in a position where one has to
-manoeuvre to see it, and the first warning comes when one sees the
-flash of wings in the air and, in an agony of hope and doubt, moves
-about until the hole can be seen and the presence of the swarm truly
-verified. Even when the tree is pinned between two stands, it may take
-a long time. I remember one tree that we had so pinned. I had with me
-my son, who is a good bee hunter, a companion of his, and a couple of
-rank amateurs. The five of us tramped the area between the two stands
-for an hour before I found the hive. It was in a smallish swamp maple
-that divided into two boles four feet above the ground. Neither hole
-was big enough to hold bees, so we had passed it unsuspecting. In the
-crotch where the boles divided was a hole and into this the bees were
-dropping, making their home in the short trunk near the ground. After
-we had found it we noted that we had actually trampled a path through
-the ferns within fifteen feet of the tree.
-
-[Illustration: THE BEE TREE
-
-The bees have entered the hole indicated by the arrow in an otherwise
-sound maple tree. Bees rarely choose a dead tree in which to make their
-hive]
-
-The commonest and most foolish question I am asked is how long it
-takes to find a bee tree. According to my experience it is somewhere
-between forty-three minutes and two years. I have already mentioned the
-accident of setting up a stand within sight of the tree and finding it
-in less than an hour. Another time it was not an accident but a well
-calculated guess. In late September I was gunning in the Blue Mountain
-Forest area in New Hampshire. The day was unseasonably warm. I found
-no game, but observed a great many bees working the few goldenrod that
-were left and some late asters. I well knew the terrain. A little to
-the southwest was a small old sugar bush with large maples. To the
-northwest but still near was another somewhat larger. Beyond and in all
-directions had been pine forest that had recently been lumbered. There
-would be almost no chance for bees to set up in that area and therefore
-they must be in one of the two sugar groves. I went home, got my bee
-box and started a line near the small sugar bush. The line came quickly
-and I never moved. Following the line from the box, I found the bees in
-the third tree I examined. It took less than three quarters of an hour.
-
-Now for the other end of the scale. Years ago when I was still a
-boy, Smith and I started a line that ran up the steep slope of the
-southern-saddleback of Croydon Mountain. The timber was thick, the
-slope at times ladder-like, and the hunting difficult. We made
-several moves and then hunted for the tree. We could not find it and
-eventually gave it up. The following summer we struck the same line and
-hunted it again. Evidently the bees had wintered well, but still we
-could not find the tree. The next summer we got the same line. By that
-time our dander was up and we decided to find that tree. We ran a line
-as well as possible. Then we began to examine the timber horizontally
-back and forth across the line, blazing our paths to make sure that the
-whole area was covered. After a time, I heard a yell and considerable
-profanity accompanying it. It was below me, and I scrambled down the
-steep slope. The profanity seemed to come from a clump of young spruce
-out of which projected the old bole of a fallen maple. Smith had
-stepped on the bole, slipped, and shot through the young spruces ending
-with his legs on either side of the stump of the fallen tree. The bees
-were in that. One could have passed within ten feet and not known that
-there was anything there that could harbour a colony of bees. We had
-our tree, but it had taken a little over two years to find it.
-
-A word about cross lining. The literary experts seem always to find
-their quarry by cross lining. They catch a bee, release it, and take
-its line. Then they move a quarter of a mile, catch another and take
-its line. By triangulation, where the two lines meet, there will be the
-tree. _Pas plus difficile que ça!_ Unfortunately, as we have seen, one
-cannot get even remotely an accurate line the first time a bee leaves.
-Moreover, if one could, there would be a good chance that bee number
-two came from another colony. One would get a line north and another
-northwest, and where they met, there would be the tree. Nevertheless,
-cross lining should not be ruled out. Sometimes one will get a line too
-weak to be worth following. Trying in another place one may get another
-weak line that seems to cross at a distance the first. If one goes to
-about where the two seem to meet, there is a good chance that one will
-be near a bee tree.
-
-Let me illustrate with an amusing example. Three years ago I was bee
-hunting on the hills not far from my home in New Hampshire. I got
-a weak line nearly east and directly toward the little village of
-Croydon Flat. I decided that I must have got onto a tame swarm, though
-I could think of no one in Croydon Flat who kept bees. However, it
-was obviously time to try another area and I drove to the Flat and
-took a road northwest for a mile and a half, caught bees, and set up
-a stand. I got a weak line southeast, again directly toward Croydon
-Flat. I hunted up a friend who lived there, one Orrin Pillsbury, and
-he assured me that nobody in the Flat kept bees. The village is tiny,
-the intervale small, there is good hard wood timber near and no reason
-why a wild swarm should not have located near the village. I caught
-bees and set up in the vegetable garden back of Orrin’s house. I soon
-had a good line northeast, but it went over the house, and since some
-energetic bees flew over the house, others preferred to clear only
-the ell and still others went round, we had no accurate line. I moved
-across the village street to a field on the other side. The bees were
-a long time coming back and when they did, they established a line
-northwest. Here was a cross line with a vengeance. We investigated,
-thinking the bees were in one of the elms of the village street. I
-soon found them pouring in and out of a chimney on the house of one Cy
-Cummings. Cy had two chimneys and he only used one. The bees had set
-up in the other. That was one wild swarm I found that did me no good.
-Cy obligingly let us into the house, but when I suggested opening the
-disc in the second floor designed for the admission of a stove pipe, he
-mutinied. That was not unreasonable as I could not have got my head in
-to see, and the bees could have got out into the bedroom. Cy distrusts
-bees. I believe subsequently he built a fire in the chimney and brought
-down a mass of spoiled honey, dead bees, and melted wax. A great waste.
-
-This brings up another point. The writer has been fortunate in that the
-bulk of his hunting has been within the preserve of the Blue Mountain
-Forest Association in Sullivan County, New Hampshire. There, if one
-starts a line of bees, one can be sure it is a wild swarm. There are
-no farms with domestic bees in the area. Most hunters, however, have
-to hunt in country districts where there are farms, the owners of
-which may well keep bees. It will be wise, therefore, before going
-hunting, to ascertain the localities where tame bees are kept. Nothing
-is more frustrating than to start a line, get it going well, run it
-several moves, and end in a farmer’s backyard with the revelation that
-a hard day’s work has done no more than adulterate his honey with a
-half a pint of sugar syrup. This happened to me once, but it has not
-happened again. New Hampshire is largely wooded, and if a line heads
-for a deep woods on a mountain slope, one can be reasonably sure that
-one is trailing a wild swarm. Do not, however, let that prevent you
-from lining a wild swarm near a locality where there are tame bees.
-Many wild swarms are simply once removed from the domestic variety.
-Even a good apiarist often loses a colony when his bees swarm at an
-inconvenient time, and the new colony may set up quarters not far
-from the old. For years I refrained from starting a line from my own
-lawn because of the presence a mile and a quarter away of a number
-of colonies belonging to a gentleman known as Chicken Smith. Chicken
-Smith’s bees used my flowers regularly. Then one day I decided to start
-a line anyway just for interest and found a wild swarm in my own sugar
-bush.
-
-One question often asked is how much honey one gets from a bee tree.
-The amount varies enormously. My record is ninety-seven pounds of
-unstrained honey from one tree. It was not a large tree, but it had
-a large hollow. It involved a terrific fight with the bees, as one
-would expect, and both my companion and I were rather well stung, but
-we filled a wash boiler with honey and then had to go home for more
-containers. On the other hand, one may take up a tree and get only a
-pound or two. I remember taking up an old rock maple. Its branches were
-so wide that when we cut it down, it merely leaned on its elbows and
-we had to cut it three times before we could get to the entrance to
-the hive. The wood was so heavy and the grain so gnarled that a steel
-wedge held against the wood and struck with a sledge, would bounce off.
-To get into the hollow was about as easy as cracking a safe, and it
-took three of us over three hours. Our reward was one piece of filled
-comb smaller than the palm of my hand. It is all a gamble and part of
-the fascination of the hunt. As an average, I should say one ought to
-expect to get eighteen to twenty pounds of strained honey from a tree.
-
-As to the number of moves, that varies from no move at all, as we have
-seen, to a dozen or even more. The longest line I remember I started
-years ago in the clearing at the base of Croydon Mountain. The line
-took me up the steepest slope to the ridge just north of the summit.
-Thence it carried over the ridge and down the opposite side. When it
-came time to take up the tree, it was easier to come in from the north
-than from the south along the line I had followed. It took me three
-days, and I made fifteen moves. When bees are running well, one can
-leave them in the late afternoon and pick them up again next day. On
-leaving them, one fills every available piece of comb, weights the box
-with a stone so it will not be blown off in case of a sudden wind, and
-puts one piece of comb in the outer compartment with the lid propped
-up only half an inch so that in case of rain at least one comb will
-retain undiluted syrup. In spite of all this, when one returns next
-day, usually every piece of comb is empty and the bees gone. It is hard
-not to be discouraged, but there is no need to be. Fill the comb and
-wait. In five, ten, or twenty minutes a bee will come for one more look
-to see if a trifle of sweet may still be gleaned. He will load, depart,
-and in half an hour you will have a roaring line once more.
-
-Bee hunting brings some odd experiences. As boys, my brother and I were
-bee hunting with Smith and found the bees in the base of a rock maple
-on the edge of the woods, in a fissure not five feet from the ground.
-It was late September and we decided to take up the tree forthwith. It
-was not necessary to fell the tree, but merely to cut into the hollow
-to get the honey. We had, however, no nets or gloves, so we built a
-smudge to drive back and stupefy the bees while we were getting the
-honey. We made a good haul and drove back to camp three miles away that
-evening and had ourselves a Gargantuan meal of brook trout, flapjacks,
-and new honey. After supper we went out to listen to the bugling of
-the elk with which the preserve was stocked and, looking across the
-valley, we saw a bright light. Our smudge had set fire to the tree.
-We drove back and found the hollow interior a furnace. There was no
-water available, and the fire had burned high up in the hollow. We
-had no means to extinguish it, nor did we dare leave it for fear the
-tree would fall and the fire spread. The elk were bugling merrily, and
-in those days an old bull in the rutting season was quite capable of
-attacking a man. We finally climbed onto a large branch of the nearest
-maple and spent a restless night telling stories and waiting for the
-fire to burn itself out. Fortunately, by morning it had.
-
-Sometimes the attempt to find a tree is unusually baffling. One time
-my son and I lined and cross lined a swarm until we narrowed the
-search to two or three trees. The likeliest was a beech, but though we
-occasionally got a glitter of wings in the air, we could not be sure
-that we had the tree. It was not until we had gone home and returned
-with a powerful pair of field glasses that we were able to distinguish
-the bees in the foliage forty-five feet in the air and near enough the
-hole to make us certain that we had our bee tree. The actual hole
-itself we did not see until we felled the tree and took up the swarm.
-Another time I had run the line to the top of a mountain and then the
-line reversed itself. Between the two last stands there was nothing
-but bull spruce not big enough to hold a colony, and moreover I had
-never heard of bees in a spruce. Tree by tree I examined the terrain. I
-finally found the bees dropping down into the roots of a spruce where
-there was a hollow partly in the wood and partly in the ground where
-the colony had settled. It was a miserable little swarm, and I never
-bothered to take it up. The next summer it was gone, as I had expected
-in the case of a foolish swarm that had selected so unsuitable an
-habitation.
-
-Does one ever find a bee tree by accident? Yes, but very, very rarely.
-I once was eating my luncheon beside a mountain brook and noticed a
-honey bee loading water at a wet spot. He flew off and soon came back.
-I got out my watch and timed him. He was gone two minutes. I rose and
-went in the direction of his departure and found the tree fifty yards
-away. This was without benefit of bee box or syrup, but did involve
-lining of a sort. On the other hand, I once found a tree on top of a
-mountain and, choosing a different way down, found another bee tree
-two hundred yards from the first. My guess is that the older colony
-had swarmed, and the new commune had decided to set up in the nearest
-suitable place to the old. Another tree I found accidentally due to an
-amusing mistake. My companion had had some experience in bee hunting,
-and when I started out to catch some bees I asked her to fill the comb
-for me so as to be ready when I returned with the bees. She did so,
-however filling the comb from the anise bottle instead of the syrup
-bottle. There was nothing for it but to go all the way home for fresh
-comb and start over again. On the way back we discovered a large colony
-of bees in a huge pine which we had passed unnoticed as we had gone out
-the first time. These are the only trees I remember having discovered
-by accident, and I have looked longingly into thousands of likely
-trees. To find bees one must hunt them and not rely on chance.
-
-Sometimes bees, for such sagacious insects, show remarkably little
-sense in the abode they select. I once found a colony in a small dead
-poplar (or popple I should prefer to call it) so weak and rotted that
-I could have pushed it over with my weight. Those bees I decided to
-save for pets. My wife, the farmer, and I drove that night to a place
-a few hundred yards from the tree. The hole was about five feet up.
-The family was all at home of course, and I plugged the hole with moss
-to keep them there. Then we attached a rope to the tree as far up as
-we could reach and sawed it off at the base, lowering it gently to the
-ground. Then we cut off the top above the hollow which sheltered the
-bees. The farmer and I easily carried it to the buckboard and brought
-it home in triumph. I had already prepared a place for it in a tub sunk
-in the ground and cement ready to puddle around it. Soon our bee tree
-was standing erect in the cow pasture near the house with a saucepan
-over the top to keep rain from seeping into the hollow. I unplugged the
-hole and went to bed. Next morning I went out to see how my guests did.
-They were six miles from where they had gone to bed the night before
-and were quite untroubled by it. They had already organized perfectly.
-The temperature of the hive apparently had risen, and a ring of fanners
-was around the hole fanning air into the interior with their wings
-where it was caught up by other fanners and driven through the hive.
-The ventilation system was humming. The bees had already discovered the
-small brook a few yards away, and a bucket brigade was busily fetching
-water. The bulk of the workers had discovered my neighbor’s buckwheat
-patch and were busily gathering nectar. I kept them for several years
-and got much fun from watching them, nor did they ever show the
-slightest resentment toward me for shifting their home. Eventually they
-died in an unusually severe winter.
-
-Apropos of starting a line without catching a bee, it can be done but
-only by the rarest accident. I did it once. I had gone out to hunt
-after the autumnal frosts, hoping to find a late flower or two on which
-I could catch a bee. I went to a sheltered clearing and, leaving my
-spare box open with the empty comb exposed on a boulder, I wandered
-round the clearing searching for a bee. Finding none after fifteen or
-twenty minutes, I returned to gather up my kit and found a bee buzzing
-round the empty comb. He had found it by accident, having flown near
-enough to get a scent of the comb and anise. I succeeded in filling the
-dropper with syrup and squirting it onto the comb without frightening
-the bee. He found the syrup promptly, loaded, and left. I then filled
-the comb properly. I had hardly finished when the bee returned with
-three friends. In fifteen minutes I had a roaring line, and in three
-moves and about two hours I found the tree. This was a good example of
-how well bees will run on a warm fall day after the flowers have gone
-by. It is also the only example I remember of my being fortunate enough
-to start a line in this way.
-
-The most ancient bee tree I ever found was approximately twenty-four
-hundred years old. My wife and I were examining the ruins of one of the
-Greek temples at Selinunte, the ancient Selinus in southern Sicily.
-Of one of the temples, all but two of the columns had been overthrown
-by an earthquake. One of those standing had been terribly worn by the
-hot sirocco wind that blows periodically from the African coast. In
-order to preserve it, the top had been capped with cement, but there
-was a large hollow underneath. As I neared it, some telepathic cell
-in my brain began to signal “bees.” Without thinking what I did, I
-stepped to the column and ran my eye up it as I would have done had I
-been looking for a bee tree. At the top the members of a busy swarm
-were pouring in and out from the hollow under the cement. That was a
-bee tree I could not take up. I had a similar experience several years
-later in the ruined abbey of San Galgano south of Siena in Tuscany.
-The abbey was built by French Cistercians in the early thirteenth
-century, and the walls and apse are still standing though the roof
-has long since disappeared. The ruin is fenced off and locked, but a
-neighboring peasant brings the key and admits one for a few _soldi_.
-I was examining the alien architecture with a professional interest
-when once more the bell rang in my brain and something said “bees.” I
-ran my eye up one of the columns and soon saw so many bees coming and
-going from an aperture in the triforium that the original colony must
-have increased enormously in almost unconfined space. I turned to the
-peasant and said:
-
-“Ci sono api in quest’edificio.”
-
-He answered:
-
-“Si Signore, ma Lei è il primo che l’ha mai osservato.”
-
-I also found a lively swarm in the triforium of the ruined abbey of
-Jumièges in Normandy which antedated San Galgano by a hundred years. So
-it is possible to combine the discovering of wild bees with the study
-of the history of art.
-
-Perhaps the tree I remember most vividly is the first one ever
-discovered unaided. When I hunted with Smith, he was invariably the
-one who first saw the bees. Since his death years ago, I have hunted
-with many people and only twice has my companion seen the bees before
-I did. There is something telepathic in the way an old hunter senses
-the nearness of bees, though even he is often fooled. In order to
-find a tree entirely on my own I had to escape from Smith’s tutelage.
-The great day came when I was about fifteen. I caught bees in front
-of my father’s house in Newport, N. H., and soon got a good line
-running straight up the side of Coit Mountain. There was a long upland
-pasture and beyond that the woods. Four moves took me to the forest
-edge and timing and numbers both told me the tree was near. I went up
-the line to look for the bees or for a clearing and soon found the
-swarm in a good-sized rock maple. I have received a number of great
-thrills in a long life, such as the notification that I had qualified
-for my doctorate, the reception in New York harbour in late December
-1918 after the first World War, the citation from the President on
-receiving an honorary degree from Harvard, but, believe me, these
-thrills are all in class B as compared to the one I got when I first
-found a bee tree unaided.
-
-The finding had an amusing sequel. The hole was about eight feet up
-the bole, too far to reach but near enough for the bees to be very
-conscious of an intruder. I started proudly to blaze my initials on
-the tree when I became conscious of a roar and the air seemed to grow
-dark above me. I turned and ran just in time, nor did I return to
-finish blazing the tree. Later, I related the event to George Smith who
-covered me with contumely. That a man should find a tree and then be
-driven off by the bees before he could blaze it, Smith regarded as a
-disgrace. He assured me that he would take up the tree himself without
-benefit of veil or gloves. I knew better than to argue, but on the
-appointed time when he, my brother and I went to take up the tree, I
-brought two veils and two pairs of gauntlets. When we got to the tree I
-set about collecting dry stuff for a smudge, a matter which Smith said
-was quite unnecessary. I was downhill from the tree when he went to
-work. I heard the axe fall perhaps a half a dozen times, and then there
-was a siren-like wail of profanity, and Smith came charging through the
-woods, a stream of angry bees behind him like a comet’s tail. That was
-one swarm which defeated the intrepid Smith. He borrowed my brother’s
-net and gloves, my brother went off and hid in the woods, and with net
-and glove protection and a smudge as well, we cut into the tree and
-took up the swarm. We got sixty pounds of honey.
-
-In this article I have alluded many times to “taking up” a bee tree.
-The phrase may be colloquial, but it sticks. Smith never cut a bee
-tree. He always “took it up.” Moreover, he always referred to a bee as
-“he.” I am well aware that a working bee is a sterile female, but I
-cannot bring myself to call it “she.” There is nothing feminine about a
-working bee but its anatomy. “She” is “he” to me.
-
-A word or two in more detail about the taking up of a bee tree may
-not be amiss. It brings us face to face with one unpleasant fact: the
-cruelty of the performance. For once a tree is taken up, the bees soon
-die. It is done in the autumn, and the cold soon kills the bees. They
-are deprived of food and shelter and have no time to gather more of the
-one or repair the other. They have laboured hard and are pitilessly
-robbed not only of the fruits of their labour, but of their very lives.
-They have been friendly during the running, and one has acquired an
-affection for them. How then can a reasonably tender-hearted person
-bring himself to destroy them?
-
-A reason I can give, though I do not maintain that it is an excuse.
-Bees are perhaps the most thoroughly communistic creatures extant. The
-individual counts for nothing. The spirit of the hive is all. I am told
-that the life of a working bee during a heavy honey flow is only six or
-eight weeks. The workers work themselves until they shortly die; the
-hive is kept alive by the steady hatching of larvae who in turn carry
-on the work and die. The queen, who alone of the colony lives several
-years, has one nuptial flight and spends the rest of her life crawling
-over the comb and dropping an egg into each cell. Though she, more than
-anything else, is responsible for the spirit of the hive, she is more
-of a slave than her workers. As autumnal cold descends, work stops,
-and the bees torpidly cling together for warmth and maintain existence
-by consuming their store of honey. In the spring work and laying start,
-and the worn workers live just long enough to see the process started
-once more and enough larvae hatched to replace them and assure the
-continued existence of the hive. A bee will do everything for the hive;
-nothing for a fellow bee. A bee from a strange swarm, alighting on the
-comb, will be instantly attacked. On the other hand, if one tries the
-experiment of killing a bee on the comb, pinning him with the blade of
-a knife, he will set up a screaming buzz that sounds horribly anguished
-even to the human ear--and his fellow worker, loading half an inch
-away, will pay absolutely no attention to him. When a tree is taken up,
-the spirit of the hive is killed then and there. The queen is usually
-crushed or lost. The living thing that is the hive is extinguished, and
-the individual bees become mere insects doomed to winter destruction
-as are so many of the common flies. For the individual, the hunter has
-merely hastened dissolution by a little. He has killed the hive with
-the crash of the tree. I state this not as an apology, but as a fact,
-an explanation of why one’s conscience does not trouble one after
-taking up a tree. Illogical it may be, but it is true.
-
-To return to the process. The days have lengthened, and October has
-come. Frost has killed the flowers. The bees have gathered the maximum
-of honey and will have begun to consume the store. It is time to take
-up. For equipment you will need a couple of axes, a crosscut saw, a
-sledge, and at least three stout steel wedges. Plenty of twine is
-essential. Take as many bee nets as necessary. These can be made
-extemporaneously out of black mosquito netting, but it is easier and
-safer to get the regular professional beekeeper’s veils. For every
-participant there should be a stout pair of linesman’s gauntlets. Wear
-old clothes, dungarees or old riding trousers. You are sure to get
-pretty well smeared with honey before you are done. Select a clear day
-or an overcast one, but not one with a threat of rain. If any water
-finds its way into the honey, it might as well be thrown away. It will
-surely ferment and spoil. You will need help, one or, better yet, two
-good woodsmen. In New Hampshire they are not hard to find. Probably
-they are working for you on your own place or for your neighbour. A few
-men have a rooted fear of bees and will be unavailable. The average
-lumberman, if promised reasonable protection, will come along and face
-the hard work for the fun. Taking up a bee tree is an exciting and
-thrilling performance. Lastly, bring plenty of receptacles for the
-honey. The humiliation of returning with five pounds of comb in a wash
-boiler is nothing as compared to the exasperation of filling a couple
-of buckets and finding you have no way of transporting the rest of the
-honey that is left in the tree.
-
-Thus equipped you sally forth, hunter, woodsmen, and usually one or
-two camp followers in the way of guests or the curious. Your tree
-has been marked with your initials and a trail blazed to it with
-your hand axe so you have no difficulty in finding it. If it is on
-your property, well and good. If not, your New Hampshire farmer is
-usually a reasonable being if you treat him properly. A bee tree is
-not valuable. The mere fact that it has a hollow generally proves
-that it is not commercially valuable for anything but firewood, and
-after it is felled, if the owner wants to work it up into firewood, he
-is at liberty to do so. A proper approach and the promise of a jar or
-two of honey will usually win you permission to take up the tree, and
-the owner will come along to watch the fun. In all my many years of
-experience, I have only once been refused permission to take up a bee
-tree without payment.
-
-Arriving at the tree a council of war will follow as to how best to
-fell it. If you are wise, you will allow this decision to be made by
-your woodsmen. If possible, it should be felled so that the hole is
-on one side or on top. If possible, it should not be felled across
-boulders, as it is very desirable not to have the hole split. Sometimes
-a tree will be so leaning, however, that there is no choice in the
-matter, and one must do the best one can. While the woodsmen are
-chipping the trunk and beginning to saw, the hunter should gather moss,
-the fronds of ferns, or other stuff to plug the hole when the tree is
-brought down. As the saw bites deeper and the scarf widens, the top
-of the tree will begin to sway. Now is the time for the hunter to don
-his veil and gloves. Before putting on the veil, it is well to turn up
-the collar of one’s jacket. It is not even an act of supererogation
-to tie tightly some twine around one’s waist. I once had an ambitious
-bee crawl up under my jacket, down through the band of my trousers, up
-under my shirt and undershirt and sting me in the small of the back.
-For protection of the legs, nothing is better than a light pair of
-fisherman’s rubber boots. Failing them, tie the bottom of your trousers
-or dungarees tightly round the tops of your shoes. Do _not_ wear low
-shoes. My companion did that the time we took up the ninety-seven pound
-tree. It was in a swamp and, in addition to the discomfort of wet feet,
-he found that a couple of dozen bees, stupefied by the smudge, fell
-into the water, revived, and relieved their feelings by swimming across
-to his ankles and stinging them. The next day his legs looked as though
-he had elephantiasis, and never thereafter could I get him to help me
-take up a bee tree. He could not seem to comprehend that the fault was
-his for wearing low shoes.
-
-The cut deepens. The tree sways wider. It begins to heave, and one
-hears the first pistol-like reports of the cracking trunk. Slowly
-at first then with rapid momentum the tree falls with a thunderous
-roar. The axemen have snatched the saw from the cut and jumped back.
-The hunter rushes in, his hands full of moss, finds the aperture and
-plugs it before the bees can escape. At least he tries to. Sometimes
-he misses a subsidiary aperture, and some bees escape to enliven the
-proceedings. Sometimes the bole splits at the hollow and nothing can
-be done about that. Usually the hole can be plugged, and one can take
-one’s time preparing to open the hollow.
-
-The woodsmen now put on their nets and gloves, if indeed they have not
-done so just before felling the tree. All debate as to whether the
-hollow extends above or below the hole, often a matter of guesswork.
-Then the saw comes into play again. The lumbermen cut deep scarves
-above and below the area where the honey is supposed to be. When rotten
-wood (and at times honey!) shows on the blade, one can be sure the
-hollow is entered. Then a wedge is placed at the base of one of the
-scarves and driven home with the sledge. Another, parallel to it, is
-driven in further down, and a third parallel at the lower scarf. As the
-wedges are driven home, the bole will split and a great section may be
-lifted off like a lid, exposing the honey and the bees. Of course, I
-am describing an ideal performance. Often the tree makes trouble, has
-to be sawed several times, and the opening enlarged with the axe. As
-the crack widens under the impact of the wedges, the bees pour out, and
-the fight is on. They will attack viciously, and one is aware of the
-ping of bees dashing themselves against the wire netting of the veil.
-If one has taken proper precautions, one is safe, though, to be honest,
-one usually gets stung once or twice in taking up the tree. Humans
-vary in susceptibility to bee stings. I am lucky in that they trouble
-me little, and usually the swellings are slight. On the other hand, my
-brother when once stung in the back of the hand, found his arm next
-morning thrice its normal size to the armpit. Those so constituted had
-better stop at home when a tree is taken up.
-
-Once the fight is on it is well to get at the honey as soon as
-possible. Once the comb is well broken, the bees lose most of their
-fight. They will dash around in a bewildered way, bunch up on a bush,
-gorge themselves with spilled honey, and generally give evidence that
-the spirit of the hive is dead. Only a few doughty fighters will
-continue the battle. The comb will be in layers, up and down the
-length of the hollow, sometimes in pieces two or two and one-half
-feet long, with spaces between to admit the workers. In describing
-the equipment I neglected to add a large iron spoon and a couple of
-table knives. Usually it is necessary to cut the comb to get it into
-convenient sizes, and a good deal of honey will escape and run down
-into the hollow whence it can be spooned out and added to the spoil
-in the boiler. If a certain amount of chips, dead wood, and even dead
-bees and larvae are included, do not be disturbed. It will all be
-strained anyway. I have long since given up trying to save wild honey
-in the comb. When the last available drop is garnered, gather up your
-equipment and retreat. A hundred yards away and you are quite safe and
-can doff the nets and gloves that by this time are unbearably hot and
-sticky. Then you have your first taste of delicious honey.
-
-Either wild honey is more tasty than the domestic variety or one’s
-exertions have made it seem so. My guests have always agreed that
-my wild honey is more aromatic than any one can buy. I imagine the
-answer is that strained wild honey is a blend, while domestic honey is
-generally of one variety. The taste of honey varies widely according
-to the flowers from which it is made. Clover honey, foolishly the
-most prized, is the most insipid. Golden rod honey is golden yellow
-and spicy. Buckwheat honey is, if anything, too pungent and heavy as
-molasses. The honey of Provence, made from wild thyme, has a special
-piney taste. In straining wild honey no attempt is made to separate the
-varieties, and the result is a blend, varying somewhat according to
-tree or season, but always more interesting than the domestic variety.
-Having sampled your honey and found it good, you can now go home and
-weigh your spoil. Unless, indeed, you have more than one tree to take
-up. I have taken up four in a day.
-
-The rest is an epilogue. The straining of the honey is a matter for the
-distaff side. My wife makes large bags of cheesecloth, and the comb is
-broken up and introduced into these. They are then hung over pans in a
-warm kitchen. The honey drips slowly into the pans. One fears that a
-lot will be wasted, but not so. In thirty-six hours or more the comb
-will be dry beeswax, and the honey can be run off from the pans into
-glass jars. When sealed, the honey will keep indefinitely. After a
-while it will sugar into a kind of paste. I like this better for eating
-than the liquid variety, but if anyone disagrees, it is necessary only
-to place the jar in warm water for a while, and the honey will return
-to its liquid state.
-
-So much for bee hunting and how it is done. This account has one
-virtue, perhaps only one: it is true. It is based on experience, and
-there is nothing in it that I have not done myself. I have relied on
-nothing that I have been told; there is no hearsay. I have made no
-attempt to discuss the life of the bee and the fascinating details of
-its domestic economy. For the curious in these matters, I recommend
-Maeterlinck’s _Life of the Bees_. I imagine what he says is true, but
-I cannot prove it by my own certain knowledge. It is certainly very
-beautiful and perhaps it is more important for a poet to make a thing
-beautiful than to make it true. These matters are not of my concern.
-For a more factual but equally fascinating account, I recommend _Bees’
-Ways_ by George de Clyver Curtis.
-
-I have also tried very hard to avoid purple passages. It has not been
-easy. Bee hunting is one of the most fascinating of sports, and one
-could go on describing different illuminating episodes for many pages.
-The sport combines almost everything that is desirable. It is played
-out of doors. It requires exercise both of the muscles and the brain.
-It is a sport of brawn and of craft. It can be played alone. Moreover,
-it can be played at any tempo. Time was when I could scramble up and
-down Croydon Mountain like a squirrel and could push the pace. That I
-can no longer do, but I can move more slowly, consider more carefully,
-draw on the craft and knowledge of long experience and find as many
-trees as when I was young and impetuous. The sport is one of infinite
-variety, of suspense, disappointment, perseverance, and triumph. You go
-out into the fields. Before you is a wooded mountain with ten thousand
-trees. One of those trees is a bee tree. With a very simple equipment
-you set out to find it, pitting your skill and your knowledge against
-the wiles of probably the most intelligent insect in the world. You
-try. You fail. You try again. You succeed. Your ostensible object is
-honey. It is the least of your rewards. The reward is when, after hours
-or days of trial and error, your eye catches the flash of wings in the
-tree and once more you are able to say checkmate in one of the most
-difficult, complicated, and fascinating games in the world.
-
-
-
-
-TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
-
-
-  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
-
-  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
-
-  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
-
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