64 BEES. 
from it than when you are only afew yards. Bees, 
like us human insects, have little faith in the near at 
hand ; they expect to make their fortune in a distant 
field, they are lured by the remote and the difficult, 
and hence overlook the flower and the sweet at their 
very door. On several occasions I have unwittingly 
set my box within afew paces of a bee-tree and 
waited long for bees without getting them, when, on 
removing to a distant field or opening in the woods 
I have got a clew at once. 
I have a theory that when bees leave the hive, 
unless there is some special attraction in some other 
direction, they generally go against the wind. They 
would thus have the wind with them when they 
returned home heavily laden, and with these little 
navigators the difference is an important one. With 
a full cargo, a stiff head-wind is a great hindrance, 
but fresh and empty-handed they can face it with 
more ease. Virgil says bees bear gravel stones as 
ballast, but their only ballast is their honey bag. 
Hence, when I go bee-hunting, I prefer to get to 
windward of the woods in which the swarm is sup- 
posed to have taken refuge. 
Bees, like the milkman, like to be near a spring. 
They do water their honey, especially in a dry time. 
The liquid is then of course thicker and sweeter, and ° 
will bear diluting. Hence, old bee-hunters look for 
bee-trees along creeks and near spring runs in the 
woods. I once found a tree a long distance from 
any water, and the honey had a peculiar bitter flavor 
imparted to it, I was convinced, by rain water sucked 
from the decayed and spongy hemlock tree, in which 
the swarm was found. In cutting into the tree, the 
north side of it was found to be saturated with water 
