Aug. 29, 1908.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
329 
hunter a hundred or more yards away, wonder¬ 
ing what had become of it. 
As the bee rises for its second flight, watch 
it as before, being sure to keep tab on the di¬ 
rection of its straightaway course, and when it 
returns again, carry everything a couple of hun- 
£ dred yards more in that direction. 
Each time the bee will return sooner than 
before, showing that you are getting closer to 
the quarry, and after a few flights the bee can 
often be seen to fly from the honey right up to 
an oak or gum tree not more than a hundred 
feet away, and the quest is over so far as the 
trailing is concerned. 
Sometimes the wait for bees to come to a 
blossom may be tedious, in which case they 
may be quickly attracted by burning a smudge. 
In this the atmosphere is highly impregnated 
with the ordor of burning beeswax, and the 
bees, in obedience to the instinct to rob, soon 
appear upon the scene. Build a fire, and in it 
heat a large stone, and when this is very hot. 
poke it from the fire and place on it a small 
piece of beeswax. As it melts, it will smoke, 
and send off a pungent odor, which will be de¬ 
tected by bees, even at great distances, and 
rarely do they fail to respond, and find the 
honey, or syrup, awaiting them. 
Having trailed our little bee to its tree, the 
next question is to get the honey without being 
■p:... 
i PLACING A TUMBLER OVER A BEE WHILE IT IS ON 
THE PREPARED COMB. 
stung. Though this might appear to be a for- 
i midable task, yet it is really more easily ac¬ 
complished than we would at first imagine. 
Sometimes the home of the bees will be very 
near the ground, in which case no difficulties 
will be experienced, but oftener it will be 
twenty to forty feet from the ground, in which 
case telegraph pole climbers will be quite ser- 
* viceable. 
If the swarm has stored its honey in a pro¬ 
jecting branch of the tree, a good way to get 
at it is to sound it and then saw off the outer 
end first, cutting not through the hollow part, 
but through the solid wood and then tie a rope 
about what remains, so that when it is sawed 
from the body of the tree it can be gently low¬ 
ered with rope over an upper limb. 
If the combs are in the body of the tree, the 
tree can be felled, and a section sawed or 
chopped out to get at the honey. It will be 
best, if the bees are not to be saved, to first 
destroy them, which can be easily done by burn¬ 
ing some sulphur in a can, dipping a rag 
wrapped around a stick into it, and inserting 
this into the hole or entrance of their home, 
only being certain that the sulphur-dipped rag 
is large enough to fully stop up the hole, other¬ 
wise the bees will get out and you will find that 
discretion is the better part of valor. 
Field glasses are often useful in watching the 
flight of the bee, but if one’s eyesight is fairly 
good, they are not necessary. If you locate a 
swarm of bees in a tree that stands on a farm, 
be sure to get the owner’s permission to cut it. 
S UNDAY, June 28 , found me in Hyannis, 
Grant county, the sandhills country in 
Northwestern Nebraska, with no work 
pressing for the next ten days, so I embraced 
the opportunity to spend a few days among the 
hills and lakes of Cherry county. 
The weather was cool and the roads fine, un¬ 
usually heavy rains of the early summer having 
packed the sand and made traveling a pleasure; 
so, mounted upon a good horse, and with pack 
saddle well supplied and a . 22 -caliber rifle for 
purposes of defense, I took my solitary way to 
the lake country, lying some forty miles north¬ 
east of my starting point. 
The unusually wet season had made the coun¬ 
try verdant and beautiful; the range was unusu¬ 
ally fine and the hay valleys promised a bounti¬ 
ful harvest. The lakes were all full to over¬ 
flowing; the cattle and horses running all 
around me were fat and sleek, lazy and con¬ 
tented. I paid little attention to roads, except 
where it was necessary to find one for the pur¬ 
pose of getting through a gate, and kept the 
general direction through valleys and over sand 
ridges, taking in the sights and sounds of that 
still mighty wilderness. 
The white bloom of the soapweed reared its 
heavy columns in scattered phalanx along the 
hillsides, the dry bunch grass of last year was 
still standing where no fire had traversed the 
range, and the wily coyote was safe from sight 
as long as he lay still. 
About the middle of the afternoon I noticed 
several patches of buck brush away to my right, 
and knowing the habit of the mother grouse of 
taking her brood to those hiding places when 
the afternoon sun became unpleasant, I turned 
in the direction, and arriving at the brush, had 
the satisfaction of routing out three coveys of 
young grouse. The mother was still with them 
and the young ones were all about the size of 
quail. They were taking their first lessons in 
flying, and when routed flew three or four rods 
at a time, and ran like race horses when on the 
ground. Each covey contained at least a dozen 
birds, and so I found them all through the hills, 
showing that the nesting season had been pro¬ 
pitious, and the prospect for sport next October 
is very fine. 
To my surprise I found the afternoon gone, 
night coming on apace, and I had ridden only 
about twenty miles. As there was no hospitable 
ranch house in sight, I determined to camp. On 
the north side of a range of mighty sandhills I 
located my first camp, and picketing my horse 
Finding a bee tree gives you no right to cut it 
down without such permission, but when the 
trees are located in a forest things are different 
from what they would be were a noble shade 
tree involved. 
These directions, if carefully followed, will 
enable the most inexperienced person to suc¬ 
cessfully trail or line bees, which after all is 
not a difficult thing to do. 
near the foot of the ridge, where the grass was 
good, I took my supper from my saddle bags, 
and with my blankets climbed high up the ridge, 
to be free from the mosquitoes that infest the 
valleys at night, and made my bed upon the 
ground, with my face to the north, so that the 
stars of the great dipper would mark the hours 
of the night for me, in their revolution around 
the pole star. I soon fell asleep and awoke to 
find the morning sun shining in my face. 
Not being prepared to make camp-fire coffee, 
WATCHING THE BEE IN ITS HOMEWARD FLIGHT. 
I saddled up and a pleasant gallop of five miles 
brought me to a ranch house where I was made 
welcome and enjoyed a good breakfast, in fact, 
I enjoyed it so well that I wished I could take 
a five-mile gallop every morning before break¬ 
fast. 
Noon found me in the lake country, and an¬ 
other ranch house furnished my provisions fot 
the next few davs. I was in the saddle all da\ 
and every day for a week, but as I was not 
traveling or going anywhere, I fancy that 
twenty, or twenty-five miles at most, was the 
actual distance that I rode in any one day. I 
had always had a curiosity to know how far 
from water the ducks nest, and how the young 
ducklings were gotten into the water. When a 
boy I was told that the old duck took the young 
ones on her back and flew with them to the 
water, but that is a mistake. The old one tolcs 
them along, leading the way, and frequently 
leaves them on the road and flies to the water, 
takes a good swim and goes back to her diu'k- 
lings again. They do not nest where there »s 
any danger of high water destroying the eggs 
or young, but from forty rods to three miles 
from water, it depending largely upon the nature 
A Week in the Saddle 
By A. D. McCandless 
