TRAPPING AND BEE HUNTING. 



175 



course and fly along the side of a hill to keep out of a strong wind 

 until they were nearly opposite the tree, when they would make 

 nearly a square turn to the tree. That they would also vary their 

 flight from a straight line to follow an opening as a road cut out 

 through the thick woods. 



The flight of the bees, as I suspected, was soon all to the left 

 of the tree standing on the bank of the road. We moved the bait 

 down to the mouth of the side draft and soon had aline flying 

 nearly up the hollow. I told Smoky to take the bees some forty 

 rods up the hollow and make a stand while I would follow and 

 inspect the trees that looked favorable. Soon Smoky halloed to 

 me and said that the bees had nearly all left him. I told him to 

 make the stand where he was. As he had passed the tree that 

 was the cause of the bees dropping off all at once. 



Just below where Smoky was and a little up on the bank from 

 the hollow stood a large maple tree. I started to inspect the tree. 

 Bees were flying all about me and as soon as I was near enough to 

 the tree to see, I could see bees flying all about the tree, some 

 forty feet from the ground. I called to Smoky and told him that 

 the bees were treed in a large maple. 



This was on the fourth day of November and was a very rare 

 thing for bees to be working at that time of the year in this 

 section of the country. This tree made the sixth bee tree that we 

 had found while in camp. 



This ended our bee hunting and we now put in the balance of 

 the time, while in camp, with the traps. It will now be necessary 

 to go back to the 20th of October to a time that Smoky said was 

 the biggest day of his life. 



On the 20th of October we started out to look at the bear 

 traps with little hopes of getting anything more than a porcupine. 

 Up to this time we had not seen any signs of bear, only what had 

 been made during the summer, where the bear had dug out wood- 

 chucks and torn old logs to pieces in search of grubs, and where 

 they had dug 1 wild turnips. These signs were so old that we had 

 but little hopes, of getting a bear while in camp and Smoky was 

 continually condemning the country. 



