264 THE GREAT NORTH-WEST 



and setting fire to them forced them into the entrance 

 of the hole. The bees were soon all suffocated or driven 

 away, and the honey-comb cleared out and sent down by 

 the string. In this way about thirty pounds of honey- 

 comb was secured, besides some that was spoilt by being 

 burned, or flavoured with the smoke. 



This honey was much prized by the farmer's wife, and 

 we rose so much in her favour and that of her daughters 

 that I am afraid we received much more than ten times 

 the value of the honey during our stay ; for notwithstand- 

 ing the distance of our camp from the farm, a boy was fre- 

 quently sent over with eggs, butter, pork, jam, and flour. 

 On nearly every farm in the New England States, to say 

 nothing of other parts of the country, bees are kept and 

 carefully attended to ; but in North Michigan we learned 

 that bee-keeping was not generally successful. At this 

 particular farm and others where I made inquiry they 

 had failed to rear bees in spite of repeated trials. The 

 wild swarms had been taken, often at great trouble and 

 expenditure of time, and though they sometimes stopped 

 in the hives for one season, they always forsook their 

 new quarters before the second arrived. Sometimes, 

 from some undiscoverable cause, a great number of the 

 bees died. They never, under any circumstances, made 

 an attempt to lay up a store of honey for the second 

 winter. On some farms, however, bees that had been 

 brought from a distance succeeded tolerably well, but I 

 heard of no cases of such heavy hives as are the rule in 

 Ohio, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, &c., where bees prosper 

 exceedingly. 



The climate of all these States in winter is exceedingly 

 severe, Michigan particularly so ; yet the wild bees are 

 numerous. The insect therefore must be very hardy. 

 With many poor people — mean whites, as they are termed 

 here — and with negros, bee-hunting is a source of living, 

 to some extent at least. It is not the honey, however, 

 but the wax which is the chief object of the search. 



