AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE 63 



"Oh, did you see that? Peggy Mel came in a few 

 moments ago in great haste, and one of the upstairs 

 packers says she was loaded till she groaned with 

 apple-blossom honey, which she deposited, and then 

 rushed off again like mad. Apple-blossom honey in 

 October ! Fee, fi, fo, fum ! I smell something ! Let 's 

 after." 



In about half an hour we have three well-defined 

 lines of bees established, two to farmhouses and 

 one to the woods, and our box is being rapidly 

 depleted of its honey. About every fourth bee 

 goes to the woods, and now that they have learned 

 the way thoroughly they do not make the long pre- 

 liminary whirl above the box, but start directly 

 from it. The woods are rough and dense and the 

 hill steep, and we do not like to follow the line of 

 bees until we have tried at least to settle the prob- 

 lem as to the distance they go into the woods, 

 whether the tree is on this side of the ridge or into 

 the depth of the forest on the other side. So we 

 shut up the box when it is full of bees and carry 

 it about three hundred yards along the wall from 

 which we are operating. "When liberated, the bees, 

 as they always will in such cases, go off in the same 

 directions they have been going; they do not seem 

 to know that they have been moved. But other 

 bees have followed our scent, and it is not many 

 minutes before a second line to the woods is estab- 

 lished. This is called cross-lining the bees. The 

 new line makes a sharp angle with the other line, 

 and we know at once that the tree is only a fe\v 



