282 



THE BEK-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



even longer, lead him at last to the 

 sheltered hives of some farm house; or 

 more than this, when, having found the 

 tree and put his mark upon it, he goes at 

 the first opportunity to cut it and finds 

 that he has been forestalled by some free- 

 booter, who has left him only the fallen 

 tree, some fragments of empty comb, and 

 the forlorn survivors of the harried 

 swarm. 



When the stronghold of the bees is sap- 

 ped by the hunter's ax and topples down, 

 in many cases the garrison appears to be 

 so overwhelmed by the calamity as to offer 

 little or no resistance; but often the 

 doughty little amazons fight so bravely 

 for home and honey, that their assailants 

 are obliged to smother them with a 

 "smudge" of dead leaves or straw before 

 they can secure their booty. 



A couple of our bee-hunters had looked 

 long for a tree on their line, when one of 

 them, backing up against a great bass- 

 wood to rest, was stung midway between 

 his head and his heels, that part of his 

 person happening to block the entrance, 

 so low that it had been overlooked, to 

 what proved to be an 8o-lb. bee tree. My 

 particular bee-hunter was puzzled by a 

 swarm last season, which he found at last 

 in a fallen tree, and so was saved the 

 labor of much chopping. 



BKE-HUNTING. 



The Difficulties During a Honey Flow. Catch- 

 ing the Bees and Getting the 

 "Line" Started. 



It is well known that it is difficult to 

 get bees to notice bait when there is a 

 good flow of honey. I remember bring- 

 ing home a colony of bees just at the 

 opening of the ba.sswood harvest. The 

 combs were rather new, and the jolting 

 broke them down. The hive was brought 

 home in the night and set upon the stand 

 that it was to occupy, and the entrance 

 opened. The next morning there was a 

 great puddle of honey standing on the hard 

 clay soil in front of the hive. It had run 

 out of the broken combs. The soil was 

 so hard and dry that the honey stood 

 there for days before it finally soaked 

 into the ground. The point that I wish 

 to make is that not a bee so nmch as 



smelled of that honey during the yield 

 from basswood. Mr. L. J. Clark writes 

 to the American Bee Journal asking how 

 he can "line" bees during a honey-flow. 

 Some of the correspondents of the Bee 

 Journal tell him that bees will work on 

 fresh honey, even if honey is to be found 

 in the flowers. Possibly they will if the 

 yield is light; but it seems to me that a 

 man could make but slight headway 

 hunting bees at a time when they will 

 not rob; and that is when there is a good 

 honey-flow. 



vSome others advise Mr. Clark to go 

 along streams of water, and "line" the 

 bees as they start for home with their 

 loads of water. Near my apiary at Rog- 

 ersville was a small brook. In dry, hot 

 weather, at a time when little honey was 

 being gathered, the edges of this brook 

 were fairly swarming with bees after wa- 

 ter; and on hot afternoons there would be 

 quite a "line" of bees from the brook to 

 the apiary; but during a good honey-flow 

 scarcely a bee could be found near the 

 brook. The freshly gathered nectar 

 furnishes the bees all the water that they 

 need; in fact, they have to exert them- 

 selves to get rid of the surplus water. 

 As in the case of using fresh honey for 

 bait during a honey flow, so I think that 

 lining bees from bodies of water at such 

 a time might be a success, if the yield of 

 honey was scanty or the honey very thick. 



The American Bee Journal prints several 

 replies to the query of Mr. Clark. Some 

 of these replies contain quite a little gen- 

 eral information upon the subject of 

 bee-hunting, and I take pleasure in copy- 

 ing the reply of a subscriber from New 

 Hampshire. He says: — 



I will describe the way I hunt bees in 

 New Hampshire. First, take some strips 

 of lumber i^^ inches wide, about 5-16 

 thick, and make three boxes 2^4 inches 

 wide, 3^4 long, nail a bottoin on one. 

 This will be the comb-box. Before nail- 

 the other two together cut two grooves on 

 the inside of each side-piece of the box, 

 one near the top, and one near the bot- 

 tom; then cut a piece of glass that will 

 just fit into the top groove, when you 

 nail the box together. When nailed, fit 



