AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE, >J 



come back and commence operations in an openin" 

 in the woods well down on the side of the mountain, 

 where we gave up the search. Our box is soon 

 swarming with the eager bees, and they go back to- 

 ward the summit we have passed. We follow ba 

 and establish a new line where the ground will pel 

 mit ; then another and still another, and yet the rids 

 die 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 open- 

 ing, 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 com*' 

 placent buzz of the well-filled insect. Here then is 

 our idyl, our bit of Virgil and Theocritus, in a de- 

 cayed 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 protectee 

 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 middle 

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

 home and have not heard the news. When they re- 

 turn and find the ground flowing with honey, and 

 piles of bleeding combs lying about, they apparently 

 do not recognize the place, and their first instinct is 



