AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE . 73 



presenting that slightly dented, uneven surface, it 

 looked like some precious ore. When we carried 

 a large pailful of it out of the woods it seemed 

 still more like ore. 



Your native hee-hunter predicates the distance 

 of the tree by the time the bee occupies in making 

 its first trip. But this is no certain guide. You 

 are always safe in calculating that the tree is inside 

 of a mile, and you need not as a rule look for your 

 bee's return under ten minutes. One day I picked 

 up a bee in an opening in the woods and gave it 

 honey, and it made three trips to my box with an 

 interval of about twelve minutes between them; it 

 returned alone each time; the tree, which I after- 

 ward found, was about half a mile distant. 



In lining bees through the woods the tactics of 

 the hunter are to pause every twenty or thirty rods, 

 lop away the branches or cut down the trees, and 

 set the bees to work again. If they still go for- 

 ward, he goes forward also and repeats his observa- 

 tions till the tree is found, or till the bees turn and 

 come back upon the trail. Then he knows he has 

 passed the tree, and he retraces his steps to a con- 

 venient distance and tries again, and thus quickly 

 reduces the space to be looked over till the swarm 

 is traced home. On one occasion, in a wild rocky 

 wood, where the surface alternated between deep 

 gulfs and chasms filled with thick, heavy growths 

 of timber and sharp, precipitous, rooky ridges like 

 a tempest-tossed sea, I carried my bees directly 

 under their tree, and set them to work from a high, 



