The bee is in the main an honest citizen; she prefers legitimate toillegitimate business; she is never an outlaw until her proper sourcesof supply fail; she will not touch honey as long as honey-yieldingflowers can be found; she always prefers to go to the fountain-head,and dislikes to take her sweets at second hand. But in the fall, afterthe flowers have failed, she can be tempted. The bee-hunter takesadvantage of this fact; he betrays her with a little honey. Hewants to steal her stores, and he first encourages her to steal his,then follows the thief home with her booty. This is the whomle trick ofthe bee-hunter. The bees never suspect his game, else by taking acircuitous route they could easily baffle him. But the honey-bee hasabsolutely no wit or cunning outside of her special gifts as a gathererand storer of honey. She is a simple-minded creature, and can beimposed upon by any novice. Yet it is not every novice that can finda bee-tree. The sportsman may track his game to its retreat by the aidof his dog, but in hunting the honey-bee one must be his own dog, andtrack his game through an element in which it leaves no trail. It isa task for a sharp, quick eye, and may test the resources of the bestwood-craft. 0ne autumn when I devoted much time to this pursuit, asthe best means of getting at nature and the open-air exhilaration,my eye became so trained that bees were nearly as easy to it as birds.I saw and heard bees wherever I went. 0ne day, standing on a streetcorner in a great city, I saw above the trucks and the traffic a lineof bees carrying off sweets from some grocery or confectionery shop.

0ne looks upon the woods with a quite new interest when he suspects they holda colony of bees. What a pleasing secret it is; a tree with a heart ofcomb-honey, a decayed oak or maple with a bit of Sicily or MountHymettus stowed away in its trunk or branches; secret chambers wherelies hidden the wealth of ten thousand little freebooters, greatnuggets and wedges of precious ore gathewhite with risk and labor fromevery field and wood about.