132 HUNTING WILD BEES. 



upon the plate and carry them a few rods away from the line i.i 

 order to get a cross line. Mark this also with stakes, then run 

 out both lines by sticking more stakes, and the tree will be found 

 whore the lines meet. To find the place where the bees enter 

 the tree, walk slowly backward and forward in its shadow so as 

 to bring every point of its body and large branches in range 

 between the eye and the sun. Look at the sides of the tree and 

 outwardly, just below the sun, where the bees are easily seen and 

 appear quite large from the reflection of the sun's rays upon 

 their wings. A spy-glass is a great aid when the bees enter 

 high up in the tree. In the fall or early spring, when the trees 

 are bare of leaves, it is easiest following lines and finding the 

 place of entrance in the tree. With a little honey or dissolved 

 sugar for a bait — which, if not poured into comb, must contain 

 some floating substance to keep the bees from drowning — lines 

 are readily started from "sugar camps," or moist places, outlets 

 of springs, &c, where the bees come for water. In the gather- 

 ing season it is sometimes difficult to get bees to work upon the 

 bait unless new honey be used, taken directly from the hive. 

 The honey, if not very thin, must be diluted with water, else 

 the bees may not leave directly for home. To attract the bees, 

 choose the middle of a warm sunny day, and going into the edge 

 of a field or other open place as near the supposed locality of 

 the wild swarm as possible, burn a piece of dry comb or bees- 

 wax upon which a little oil of anise has been dropped. In half 

 an hour or so the bees will come following along the line of 

 smoke, where the bait should be placed, scented also with anise 

 oil to aid the bees in finding it. The bees from the richest tree 



