PEPACTON 



lish a new line, where the ground will permit; 

 then another and still another, and yet the riddle 

 is not solved. One time we are south of them, then 

 north, then the bees get up through the trees and 

 we cannot tell where they go. But after much 

 searching, and after the mystery seems rather to 

 deepen than to clear up, we chance to pause beside 

 the old stump. A bee comes out of a small opening 

 like that made by ants in decayed wood, rubs its 

 eyes and examines its antennae, as bees always do 

 before leaving their hive, then takes flight. At the 

 same instant several bees come by us loaded with 

 our honey and settle home with that peculiar low, 

 complacent buzz of the well-filled insect. Here, 

 then, is our idyl, our bit of Virgil and Theocritus, 

 in a decayed stump of a hemlock-tree. We could 

 tear it open with our hands, and a bear would find 

 it an easy prize, and a rich one, too, for we take 

 from it fifty pounds of excellent honey. The bees 

 have been here many years, and have of course 

 sent out swarm after swarm into the wilds. They 

 have protected themselves against the weather and 

 strengthened their shaky habitation by a copious 

 use of wax. 



When a bee-tree is thus " taken up " in the mid- 

 dle of the day, of course a good many bees are away 

 from home and have not heard the news. When 

 they return and find the ground flowing with honey, 

 and piles of bleeding combs lying about, they appar- 

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