ared for them by honey-farmers, who keep and
tend their flocks of sweet winged cattle, as shepherds keep sheep,--a
charming employment, "like directing sunbeams," as Thoreau says. The
Indians call the honey-bee the white man's fly; and though they had
long been acquainted with several species of bumblebees that yielded
more or less honey, how gladly surprised they must have been when
they discovered that, in the hollow trees where before they had found
only coons or squirrels, they found swarms of brown flies with fifty
or even a hundred pounds of honey sealed up in beautiful cells. With
their keen hunting senses they of course were not slow to learn the
habits of the little brown immigrants and the best methods of tracing
them to their sweet homes, however well hidden. During the first few
years none were seen on our farm, though we sometimes heard father's
hired men talking about "lining bees." None of us boys ever found a
bee tree, or tried to find any until about ten years after our arrival
in the woods. On the Hickory Hill farm there is a ridge of moraine
material, rather dry, but flowery with goldenrods and asters of many
species, upon which we saw bees feeding in the late autumn just when
their hives were fullest of honey, and it occurred to me one day after
I was of age and my own master that I must try to find a bee tree. I
made a little box about six inches long and four inches deep and
wide; bought half a pound of honey, went to the goldenrod hill, swept
a bee into the box and closed it. The lid had a pane of glass in it so
I could see when the bee had sucked its fill and was ready to go home.
At first it groped around trying to get out, but, smelling the honey,
it seemed to forget everything else, and while it was feasting I
carried the box and a small sharp-pointed stake to an open spot, where
I could see about me, fixed the stake in the ground, and placed the
box on the flat top of it. When I thought that the little feaster must
be about full, I opened the box, but it was in no hurry to fly. It
slowly crawled up to the edge of the box, lingered a minute or two
cleaning its legs that had become sticky with honey, and when it took
wing, instead of making what is called a bee-line for home, it buzzed
around the box and minutely examined it as if trying to fix a clear
picture of it in its mind so as to be able to recognize it when it
returned for another load, then circled around at a little distance
as if look