LINING THE BEES. 261 



and rob the industrious insects of the " sweets of 

 their life."* 



I remarked with some degree of pleasure, that 

 although most of the stations are solely under 

 charge of assigned servants, (convict is an 

 obsolete word in the colony,) yet the huts are 



* The Americans employ several well-known methods 

 to track bees to their hives. One of the most common, 

 though ingenious modes, is to place a piece of bee-bread on 

 a flat surface, a tile for instance, surrounding it with a circle 

 of wet white paint. The bee, whose habit it is always to 

 alight on the edge of any plane, has to travel through the 

 paint to reach the bee-bread. Wlien, therefore, she flies off, 

 the observer can track her by the white on her body. The 

 same operation is repeated at an«ther place, at some distance 

 from the first, and at right angles to the bee line just ascer- 

 tained. The position of the hive is thus easily determined, for 

 it lies in the angle made by the intersection of the bee lines. 

 Another method is described in the Philosophical Transac- 

 tions for 1721. The bee-hunter decoys, by a bait of honey, 

 some of the bees into his trap ; and when he has secured as 

 many as he judges will suit his purpose, he encloses one in a 

 tube, and, letting it fly, marks its course by a pocket compass. 

 Departing to some distance, he liberates another, observes its 

 course, and in this manner determines the position of the 

 hive, upon the principle already detailed. These methods of 

 bee-hunting depend upon the insect's habit of always flying 

 in a right line to its home. Those who have read Cooper's 

 tale of the " Prairie," must remember the character of the 

 bee-hunter, and the expression of " lining a bee to its hive." 

 — Insect Architecture, pp. 145, 146. 



