52 BEES. 
two or three minutes the bee is seen rising slowly 
and heavily from the box. It seems loath to leave so 
much honey behind and it marks the place well. It 
mounts aloft in a rapidly increasing spiral, surveying 
the near and minute objects first, then the larger and 
more distant, till having circled about the spot five 
or six times and taken all its bearings it darts away 
for home. It is a good eye that holds fast to the bee 
till it is fairly off. Sometimes one’s head will swim 
following it, and often one’s eyes are put out by the 
sun. This bee gradually drifts down the hill, then 
strikes away toward a farm-house half a mile away, 
where I know bees are kept. Then we try another 
and another, and the third bee, much to our satisfac- 
tion, goes straight toward the woods. We could see 
the brown speck against the darker background for 
many yards. The regular bee-hunter professes to be, 
able to tell a wild bee from a tame one by the color, 
the former, he says, being lighter. But there is no 
difference ; they are both alike in color and in man- 
ner. Young bees are lighter than old, and that 1s all 
there is of it. If a bee lived many years in the 
woods it would doubtless come to have some distin- 
guishing marks, but the life of a bee is only a few 
months at .the farthest, and no change is wrought in 
this brief time. 
Our bees are all soon back, and more with them, 
for we have touched the box here and there with the 
cork of a bottle of anise oil, and this fragrant and 
pungent oil will attract bees half a mile or more. 
When no flowers can be found, this is the quickest 
way to obtain a bee. 
It is a singular fact that when the bee first finds 
the hunter’s box its first feeling is one of anger; it 
