174 FIFTY YEARS A HUNTER AND TRAPPER. 



the top end into four parts, or in other words quartered the stick, 

 then with two small sticks the size of a lead pencil, pressed down 

 in between these quarters. It spread them so as to form plenty of 

 space to set the box on. The other end of the stick is sharpened 

 to drive firmly into the ground. As I was about to say, while I 

 was fixing the stand, Smoky discovered a bee working on a witch- 

 hazel bush close by the stand. Smoky said that he thought that 

 the bee must have the rheumatism and was gathering Pond's 

 Extract to bathe his joints in (it is with this shrub that Pond's 

 Extract is made) and this was the cause of Smoky making the 

 remark, I suppose. 



It was necessary to burn comb here as we soon had three 

 or four bees at work on the bait and in a short time we had bees 

 a-plenty. They flew just to the right of the wagon road in a 

 westerly direction and on to the side of a very steep hill where 

 there was considerable standing timber. We soon got the course 

 of the bees' flight, but there seemed to be two lines, as some of the 

 bees would fly to the left of a large tree that stood Just on the 

 bank of the road, while others would fly to the right of the tree. 

 This caused Smoky to remark that we had another sticky job on 

 our hands, saying that there was two different lines. I told Smoky 

 that I thought not. It was all the same bees and that the bees 

 would soon all be flying -to the left or lower side of the tree. 



Smoky wished to know how I made that out. I explained that 

 I thought the bees were around the point of the hill and up a side 

 draft that came into the main hollow some sixty rods below where 

 we were and that the bees that were flying to the right of the tree 

 flew in a direct line to the tree by flying up over the point of the 

 hill then down into the hollow ; those that flew to the left of the 

 tree flew around the point of the hill and up the hollow to their 

 tree. Smoky laughed at my idea and said that bees always flew 

 in a straight line does not everybody say as straight as a bee-line? 



I told Smoky that was all very well in a level and open 

 country. That a bee knew that it was no farther around the rim 

 of a kettle than up over the bail; that a bee was far too wise to 

 carry a load up over a hill when he could get there in the same 

 distance on a level ; that bees in their flight would often vary their 



