20 LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY 



noticed, not long since, that some wood-choppers on 

 the west slope of the Coast Range felled a tree that 

 had several pailfuls in it. 



One night on the Potomac a party of us unwit- 

 tingly made our camp near the foot of a bee-tree, 

 which next day the winds of heaven blew down, for 

 our special delectation, at least so we read the sign. 

 Another time, while sitting by a waterfall in the 

 leafless April woods, I discovered a swarm in the top 

 of a large hickory. I had the season before remarked 

 the tree as a likely place for bees, but the screen 

 of leaves concealed them from me. This time my 

 former presentiment occurred to me, and, looking 

 sharply, sure enough there were the bees, going out 

 and in a large, irregular opening. In June a vio- 

 lent tempest of wind and rain demolished the tree, 

 and the honey was all lost in the creek into which 

 it* fell. I happened along that way two or three 

 days after the tornado, when I saw a remnant of the 

 swarm, those, doubtless, that escaped the flood and 

 those that were away when the disaster came, hang- 

 ing in a small black mass to a branch high up near 

 where their home used to be. They looked forlorn 

 enough. If the queen was saved, the remnant prob- 

 ably sought another tree; otherwise the bees soon 

 died. 



I have seen bees desert their hive in the spring 

 when it Avas infested with worms, or when the honey 

 was exhausted; at such times the swarm seems to 

 wander aimlessly, alighting here and there, and per- 

 haps in the end uniting with some other colony. In 



