HUNTING THE HONEY-BEE 253 



besmearing themselves with the syrup while being 

 "moved up on the line," which is now to be done. 



The hunter strikes into the woods at a smart 

 pace, but carefully keeping his course and nurs- 

 ing his box tenderly under his arm. So going for 

 twenty, thirty, forty, or more rods, but not too far, 

 in some convenient little opening or clearing, if he 

 comes to it, he "sets up" again and lets the bees 

 on the comb, where they fill themselves and go and 

 come as before. My bee-hunting friend tells me 

 if the box has been unwittingly carried beyond 

 then* home, somehow the bees fail to find it again, 

 as they do if it is set up very near the tree on the 

 side it was approached. In the last case they prob- 

 ably overfly it, but both failures seem strange in 

 such wise little folk. 



"Cross-lining" is done by setting up at some 

 little distance from the line already established, 

 and getting a new one. Where this intersects the 

 old, there, of course, the bee-tree is, but it is not 

 the easiest thing in the world to find even then, for 

 there may be a dozen trees about this not very 

 well-defined point, each of which is likely enough, 

 as looks go, to be the particular one. 



A couple of our bee-hunters had looked long 

 for a tree on their line when one of them, backing 

 up against a great basswood to rest, was stung 

 midway between his head and his heels, that part 

 of his person happening to block the entrance, so 



