182 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[March 9, 1901. 
Bees and Wasps. 
Being a Careful, Accurate and Scientific Inquiry Concerning 
Practical Points in Natural History, 
A GENUINE Californian January storm raged outside. 
The naked arms of the locust trees lining the sidewalks 
swayed and clashed in the fierce blasts of the south wind. 
The great rain drops splashed against the panes of the 
office windows and ran down them in wavy streams. 
Through these could be caught panoramic glimpses of our 
storm-swept little city, clustered in the hills, each house 
snuggled in its own individual greenery, with the quiver- 
ing fronds of the palms and the green and gold of the 
laden orange trees to tell us that this was still our be- 
loved California. 
A party of five had just finished a business meeting and 
had fallen into a story telling mood, the weather outside 
holding no inducements to counterbalance comfortable 
. armchairs, good cigars and a glowing grate within the 
shelter of sound walls. 
Dramatis Persons. — L. W. W., C. E. (a comical 
cuss) ; W. S. G., C. E. (a dryly humorous cuss) ; J. S. 
(taciturn, but all right when he gets a-going) ; T. J. N. 
(strictly business, but can tell a good story when he has 
time) ; Arefar (the truthful scribe). 
Act I., Scene i : A room filled with fragrant blue smoke, 
through which is seen at intervals five interested 
persons. Enter First R. E. Loquitor. 
lii. W. W. : Speaking about wasps reminds me of the 
time when I was on the railway survey making a recon- 
naissance through the Siskiyou Mountains for the C. & O. 
road. Our camp was pitched in the Sacramento Canon, 
and we had been six weeks in the same place. A short 
'distance above the camp was a large oak tree, in whose 
shade the boys would lie on a blanket and read in their 
leisure moments. A large limb had been wrenched ot¥ 
in some storm and lay, dry and weather beaten, on the 
sunny side of the tree, where no one wished to lie. 
About the time we were to break camp and come out for 
the winter, it had turned quite cold up there in the moun- 
tains, wi.h sharp frosts every night. One evening one of 
the party named Jim, and myself, reached camp ahead 
of the others, and found the Chinese cook in a very 
morose frame of mind and no preparations being made 
for supper. It seems that the axeman, whose duty it was 
to supply camp fuel, had ovei-looked his hand, and there 
was no wood to cook with, and the Chinaman was sullen 
and angry, and was sulking in his tent like Achilles. 
Jim at once volun eered to go and cut wood enough 
for the evening meal, being always a good natured fel- 
low and ready to accommodate even a sulky Chinaman. 
During our summer in the mountains, Jim had returned 
to primeval ways. He had not shaved or cut his hair, nor 
used a comb more than once a week. He wore a flannel 
shirt, open at the neck, exposing a well-haired breast, with 
sleeves rolled up to the shoulder. A pair of trousers 
confined at the waist by a leather belt, with the legs tucked 
into a pair of strong boots, had comprised his apparel 
during the trip. Altogether he had become a wild and 
weird figure. 
Jim started out to cut some wood, and bethought him 
of the large dry limb lying under our loafing tree as be- 
ing suitable and handy to camp. I had washed myself and 
lain down in my tent wi h an old illustrated paper to 
while away the time, and had drawn a blanket over my- 
self to keep out the evening chill. I heard Jim indus- 
triously plying his axe for a moment, and then the strokes 
ceased and there came some words of wild profanity from 
the mountain side, followed by the sound of coming feet 
and flying gravel. A second afterward Jim's face, dis- 
torted and wild looking, was thrust through the tent 
flaps, and in a voice almost inarticulate with pain and 
rage, he yelled, "Pick 'em off ! Pick 'em off ! • 'em, 
pick 'em off I" 
I certainly thought the man had suddenly gone insane, 
as in his unkempt condition he looked the part naturally. 
Then he disappeared from the tent door and went shout- 
ing, in a voice les.sening with the dislance, all kinds of 
weird profanity, mingled with howls and cries to "Pick 
'em of¥ ! Pick 'em off ! For God's sake pick 'em off !" 
At last there came to my ears one last shout and a 
great splash as he landed in the river. I sprang to tlie 
tent door and looked out in alarm in time to see Jim 
emerge dripping from his plunge bath, and plucking 
fran ically at his beard and hair. After a moment he 
started for the cook, and in picturesque language com- 
manded him to "Pick 'em off!" "Surely," I thought, 
"poor Jim has gone mad," but on approaching the pair, I 
found the cook busy in removing scores of yellowjackets 
from the poor fellow's hair and beard. 
Jim sat on a stool with his back to the fire during the 
operation, as he was shivering with cold after his plunge in 
the river, and all at once a new look of wildness came into 
his eyes, and with another curse he sprang to his feet, threw 
his hands over his head, and grasping his shirt in the 
back, he tore it off with one motion and threw it from 
him. As he did so a whole handful of the tormenting in- 
sects fell from his person. These had been warmed back 
into working condition by the heat of the fire and had 
given him a few parting shots. 
It seemed that the limb of the oak tree that he had 
•started to chop had a lively colony of wasps in it, which 
no one of us had discovered in all our loafing near jt, but 
on his cutiing into the nest they attacked him furiously. 
As the even'ng was so cold, they were not lively, and 
stuck where they alighted and presented him with a few 
practical points in natural history. 
His head swelled up the following night like the 
proverbial poisoned pup's, and he kept his bed till we 
broke camp. 
Scene 2 : Enter L. U. E. Loquitor. 
W. S. G. : I will tell one on L. W. W. himself. We 
were out on a survey in the Sierras, and had come to a 
particularly bad bit of ground, where we could not set 
3 tripod for owr instrument, I went on with the target 
and W. took a pocket compass and worked out on the 
cliff, and sat down to squint and level the best he could. 
It came out afterward that he sat down squarely over the 
entrance to a wasps' nest. The insects could not get out 
to sting him, and all was serene for a moment. Presently 
a few members of the colony who had been away came 
home. Then there was trouble. W._ dropped his com- 
pass, which rolled down the cliff with a jump and a 
rattle, until it finally disappeared in the far beyond, and 
began frantically beating the air with hat and hands and 
using language. But he made one grand mistake! He 
i-ose to his feet, thereby uncorking the nest, and the whole 
community came out like a column of yellow smoke, and 
attacked him front and rear. He was immediately 
routed, horse, foot and artillery, and I stood roaring with 
laughter to see him shambling over the rocks on all 
fours, like a grizzly, slapping and saying his prayers back- 
ward, until one of the maddened insects took me a crack 
in the jaw, when "the subsequent proceedings interested 
me no more." 
Scene 3 : Enter R. U. E. Loquitor. 
J. S. : When I was a boy on my father's farm in 
Maine, I was spreading hay one summer day after the 
mowers. This was before mowing machines had come 
into general use, and boys were of some account in the 
mowin' lot. 'Longside where I was workin' lay a bit of 
wild pasture land, all grown up with rozberry bushes, bent 
down with their first crop of fruit. 
Mother had a big buxom Irish girl as a "help" that 
summer, an' she was in the patch that mornin' a-plummin'. 
I was workin' away a-spreadin' the hay for all that 
was in me, when I heard a most infernal squallin' in the 
rozberry patch, an' lookin' that way I could see two fat 
legs a-wavin' in the air an' smothered yells comin' from the 
bushes below them. Then the legs disappeared, an' our 
"help's" face came up in their place, an' of all the hustlin' 
you ever saw, that girl beat it a-gettin' out of there. 
I thought sure it must be snakes, but 'twa'n't. She had 
run foul ®f a ball hornets' nest, an' two o' the critters had 
hit her to onst. One on 'em took her in the under lip an' 
t'other hit her fair in the left breast, where 'twa'n't pro- 
tected by anythin' but her shift an' a thin caliker dress, 
an' they knocked her down fair an' square. 
By the time she had reached the house her lip would 
have made a leather hunting jacket, an' her breast had 
swelled till it had burst the buttons off her dress, an' she 
took to her bed an' staid there for nigh a week. 
Scene 4: Enter First R. E. Loquitor. 
T. J. N. : I was brought up on a farm in central New 
York, and father had a churn that he ran by dog power. 
He kept a great lazy dog for the purpose, because he was 
so large and heavy that when he was put in the wheel 
it had to go. We used to churn at first on Mondays and 
Thursdays, but the dog got onto the daj-^s, so that he 
would hide away, so we had to break days on him, 
churning first one day and then another. Then he got 
to lying around and watching household matters, and 
whenever he saw any signs of touching the churn, he 
would make a break for a retreat under the barn, or some 
other out of the way place, from which he had to be 
hauled out by the scruff of the neck, with language, and 
then switched into the wheel. I guess if it had not be«n 
for the fact that he was always hungry, he would only 
have shown up at night. 
Father kept a large apiary and protected his hives \yith 
a thick hedge of shrubbery against the northwest wind. 
One morning the dog saw symptoms of churning, and as 
he had been detected in and hauled out of every other hid- 
ing place about the premises, he this time sought sanc- 
tuary behind a hive of bees that stood close to a particu- 
larly thick portion of the hedge. This was all right, as 
far as it went, and the dog might possibly have escaped 
attention, had he kept still. But when he heard himself 
called, he probably had tried to squeeze closer into cover, 
and in doing so disturbed the bees. 
"As bees bizz oot wi' angry fyke, when robber ban's 
assail their byke," so did these. Then there was fun 
for father and me, who were looking on. but serious busi- 
ness far the dog. He came out of the bush with a rush, 
whirling, snapping his teeth, ki-yi-ing and shaking his 
ears till we could hear them snap. After a moment of 
this he concluded that he had business in the next 
county, and struck out like a gray streak across the neigh- 
boring field, with his tail between his legs and ululating at 
every jump. But his hair was long, and a good many 
bees must have lodged in it, for he would whirl and 
snap about every half-dozen jumps. When he was about 
half-way across the field, the thought seemingly suggested 
itself to him that this must be some new form of torture 
devised by his oppressor, man, to make him churn, for 
he made a sudden turn and made straight for the hated 
wheel, into which he jumped, and began churning as he 
had never churned before. 
Scene 5 : Enter C. Loquitor. 
The Truthful Scribe : When I first came to California 
I stopped for a short time at the home of a wealthy 
rancher, who owned a 3.000-acre place on the banks of the 
Sacramento River. There was a man living there at the 
time named Gee, who earned his way as a kind of Jack-of- 
all-trades, and whom the other ranch hands had nick- 
named Ah Gee, from the Chinese suggestiveness of his 
patronymic. . , ,. , 
One day Ah Gee discovered a colony of bees in the limb 
of a great oak tree that stood a short distance from the 
horse corral. One evening during my sojourn at the 
place he went to the tree after dark and closed the open- 
ing in the limb. The next morning he took ropes and a 
saw, and accompanied by myself, started out to secure the 
colony. He climbed the tree by means of a short ladder 
which he had used the previous evening in closing the 
entrance, and affixed the ropes to the limb and then threw 
them over a higher branch and fastened the swinging ends 
to the trunk of the tree below. It was his intention then 
to cut off the extremity of the limb containing the bees, 
then to cut it off close to the trunk of the tree and lower 
the swinging segment carefully to the ground, where he 
had placed a pile of straw to receive it, should it slip. 
Lucky it was for Gee that he made provision for a soft 
tumble, as the sequel showed, for his calculations as to 
the extept of the hollow containing the nest were faulty. 
He crawled out upon the branch and began to saw 
vigorously, but as soon as he got through the bark and 
began cutiing into the wood, the end fell with a crash, 
being hollow to the extremity, and the angry bees came 
out in a cloud and fairly smothered the poor devil. He 
was blinded in an instant, and simply fell off his perch, 
but the straw saved broken bones for him. 
Scrambling to his feet, fighting and swearing like a 
maniac, he started on a wild run for the corral, intending 
to throw himself into the great horse trough to rid him- 
self of his tormentors. Unfortunately, or perhaps other- 
wise, as it turned out in the end, there was a hog wallow 
between the tree and corral fence, caused by the overflow 
from the pump of the windmill which supplied the horse 
trough. This wallow was occupied at the time with fully 
two dozen swine, all buried but their noses, and giving an 
occasional "woof'to keep the filth out of them. Right 
into the midst of these contented porkers poor Gee 
plunged, lost his footing and went headlong into the 
slime. The frightened swine, with protesting squeals, 
hastened to vacate their pool, rolling him over and over as 
they did so. Presently all were out excepting one fat old 
boar and Gee. The latter had just regained his feet when 
the boar slowly raised himself on his forefeet in time to 
get a crack in the eye from a maddened bee. This started 
him into action, and, hog-like, he dashed forward between 
the man's legs and upset him once more in the slum- 
gullion, which by this time had been thoroughly stirred 
up and stank beyond description. 
The poor fellow crawled out completely nauseated, but 
safe. No self-respecting bee, however angry, coilld touch 
such an odorous object as Ah Gee was at that moment. 
Fellow correspondents of Forest and Stream, can't you 
give us a few more points on this interesting subject, now 
that the ball is set a-roUing? 
Gentlemen, "It's up to you !" ArefAr. 
Camp-Fire Stories from Canadian 
Woods. — L 
Fishing on Stoco Lake. 
The scene of the following storiei was laid on the 
shores of a beautiful lake, noted for its fishing. Its 
waters afford relaxation and pleasure to the thriving com- 
munity composing the adjoining village of Tweed, on the 
line of the Canadian Pacific Railway, between Toronto 
and Montreal. 
Stoco Lake is really an enlargement of the Moira, one_ of 
the many rivers falling into the famed Bay of Quinte 
and enriching its waters with many varieties of fish. On 
the east, Stoco receives the waters of Qare River, on the 
north the Moira, which is here a considerable stream, hav- 
ing just been reinforced by the Scootamata and Black 
Creek. 
These streams are noted for their perennial and, as yet, 
unexhausted supply of the highly prized white pine. 
Their annual burdens, brought down by the great lum- 
ber firms, the Rathbuns and the Gilmours, are still 
almost worth a king's ransom. Follow up these waters 
for thirty miles or so and you will come into well-pro- 
tected timber limits, the land of the deer, the home of 
the beaver and the otter and all the paradise of delights 
that forests bring. 
We had been fishing for pickerel that sultry afternoon 
in the middle of one of the heated terms common to 
our northern climate. Six of us — two in each boat — had 
carefully drifted on a weed bed and dropped anchor. 
My companion was catching minnows. After trying 
in vain to get a bite — the other boats, only a few yards 
away, were having great luck — I concluded I would make 
myself useful by catching minnows also. I selected a 
small trout hook with single gut, baited it carefully and 
threw out. My bait seemed scarcely to have reached the 
water when it was taken with a snap. Away went the 
fish and whiz went my reel. I thought 1 had a 5-pound 
pickerel. I played that fish for all I was worth; I handled 
him with the skill and care of an Izaak Walton for about 
ten to fifteen minutes. When I finally got him up to the 
boat, lo! up turned a great red-finned sucker. The yell 
that went up from the rest of the party and the chaffing 
I got over that sucker made it more interesting than 
agreeable. Disgusted with fishing in general, and for 
pickerel in particular, I proposed we go to a point near by 
and take a rest in the cool, inviting shade. 
While enjoying our smoke under the benevolent 
branches, one of our party, B.. who was the postmaster 
at the village and champion fisherman of these waters, 
remarked, "Yes; a man who goes for a number of years 
fishing in our waters or tramps through our forests sees 
many strange sights and goes through many an experience 
which, when put in print or told, seem incredible. A 
hunter or a fisherman is often alone ; he is necessarily the 
hero and central figure of his story. There is no one on 
hand to contradict him, and it is only human nature that 
he should be tempted to put himself in the very best 
light, particularly if he is an amateur or a tenderfoot. 
Now, an old hand will take more delight in telling you 
how he was fooled by a buck or how he hooked a big 
fish and 'muffed' it than he does in telling of his success, 
because his years of experience is a sufficient guarantee 
of the fact. 
"Now, to give you an example from the 'chamber of 
curiosities' of my many years' experience. Suppose I 
should tell you that some years ago in this water I caught 
a large maskinonge with a minnow hook and about an 
8-foot pole. No? Well, it was this way: I intended to 
go fishing one day, and in early morning went to catch 
minnows for bait. Had a small punt and pushed my- 
self well up on a weed bed. I lay over the stern with the 
line in my hand, the pole beside me. I was fishing in 
about 3 feet of water with good success, until I saw a 
large maskinonge swim up and take my bait. I had pres- 
ence of mind to jerk on the line just enough to set the 
hook and then let go. Away went Mr. 'Lunge with bait, 
line, pole and all. I out with my punt and after him. 
Sometimes the end of that pole was 6 feet out of water, 
sometimes a foot, and at times it skipped along the sur- 
face. Round and round the lake we went for about two 
hours, I gave tb« fish no time to rest. At length he 
