HUNTING WILD BEES. 
93 
upon the plate and carry them a few rods away from the line in 
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 
where 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 
