BEE-FARMING. 



A NORTH AMERICAN BEE-HUNT. 



BY WASHINGTON IRVING. 



The beautiful forest in which we were encamped 

 abounded in bee-trees ; that is to say, trees in the decayed 

 trunks of which wild bees had established their hives. It 

 is surprising in what countless swarms the bees have 

 overspread the Far West within but a moderate number 

 of years. The Indians consider them the harbinger of 

 the v/hite man, as the buffalo is of the red man ; and say, 

 that in proportion as the bee advances the Indian and 

 the buffalo retire. We are always accustomed to associate 

 the hum of the bee-hive with the farm-house and the 

 flov/er-garden, and to consider those industrious little 

 insscts as connected with the busy haunts of men ; and I 

 am told that the wild bee is seldom to be met with at any 

 distance from the frontier. They have been the heralds 

 of civilization, steadily preceding it as it advanced from 

 thj Atlantic borders; and some of the ancient settlers of 

 the Far West pretend to give the very year when the 

 honey-bee first crossed the Mississippi. The Indians with 

 surprise found the mouldering trees of their forests sud- 

 denly teeming with ambrosial sweets ; and nothing, I am 

 told, can exceed the greedy relish with which they banquet 

 for the first time upon this unbought luxury of the 

 wilderness. 



At present the honey-bee swarms in myriads in the 

 noble groves and forests that skirt and intersect the 

 prairies, and extend along the alluvial bottoms of the 

 rivers. It seems to me as if these beautiful regions answer 



