54 BEES. 
honey which she deposited, and then rushed off again 
like mad. Apple-blossom honey in October! Fee, 
fi, fo, fum! I smell something! Let’s after.” 
In about half an hour we have three well-defined 
lines of bees established — two to farm-houses and 
one to the woods, and our box is being rapidly de- 
pleted of its honey. About every fourth bee goes to 
the woods, and now that they have learned the way 
thoroughly they do not make the long preliminary 
whirl above the box, but start directly from it. The 
woods are rough and dense and the hill steep, and we 
do not like to follow the line of bees until we have 
tried at least to settle the problem as to the distance 
they go into the woods — whether the tree is on this 
side of the ridge or in the depth of the forest on 
the other side. So we shut up the box when it is 
full of bees and carry it about three hundred yards 
along the wall from which we are operating. When 
liberated, the bees, as they always will in such cases, 
go off in the same directions they have been going; 
they do not seem to know that they have been moved. 
But other bees have followed our scent, and it is not 
many minutes before a second line to the woods is 
established. This is called cross-lining the bees. The 
new line makes a sharp angle with the other line, 
and we know at once that the tree is only a few 
rods into the woods. The two lines we have estab: 
lished form two sides of a triangle of which the wall 
is the base; at the apex of the triangle, or where the 
two lines meet in the woods, we are sure to find the 
tree. We quickly follow up these lines, and where 
they cross each other on the side of the hill we scan © 
every tree closely. I pause at the foot of an oak 
and examine a hole near the root; now the bees are 
