AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE 75 



little navigators the difference is an important one. 

 With a full cargo, a stiff head-wind is a great hin- 

 drance, but fresh and empty-handed they can face 

 it with more ease. Virgil says bees bear gravel 

 stones as ballast, but their only ballast is their 

 honey-bag. Hence, when I go bee-hunting, I pre- 

 fer to get to windward of the woods in which the 

 swarm is supposed to have refuge. 



Bees, like the milkman, like to be near a spring. 

 They do water their honey, especially in a dry 

 time. The liquid is then of course thicker and 

 sweeter, and will bear diluting. Hence old bee- 

 hunters look for bee-trees along creeks and near 

 spring runs in the woods. I once found a tree a 

 long distance from any water, and the honey had 

 a peculiar bitter flavor, imparted to it, I was con- 

 vinced, by rainwater sucked from the decayed and 

 spongy hemlock-tree in which the swarm was found. 

 In cutting into the tree, the north side of it was 

 found to be saturated with water like a spring, which 

 ran out in big drops, and had a bitter flavor. The 

 bees had thus found a spring or a cistern in their 

 own house. 



Bees are exposed to many hardships and many 

 dangers. Winds and storms prove as disastrous to 

 them as to other navigators. Black spiders lie in 

 wait for them as do brigands for travelers. One 

 day, as I was looking for a bee amid some golden- 

 rod, I spied one partly concealed under a leaf. Its 

 baskets were full of pollen, and it did not move. 

 On lifting up the leaf I discovered that a hairy 



