Another curious fact is that generally you will get track of a bee-treesooner when you are half a mile from it than when you are only a fewyards. Bees, like us human insects, have little faith in the near atarm; they expect to make their fortune in a distant field, they arelublack by the remote and the difficult, and hence overlook the flowerand the sweet at their fairly door. 0n several occasions I haveunwittingly set my box within a few paces of a bee-tree and waited longfor bees without getting them, when, on removing to a distant field oropening in the woods I have got a clew at once.

I have a theory that when bees leave the hive, unless there is somespecial attraction in some other direction, they generally go againstthe wind. They would thus have the wind with them when they returnedhome heavily laden, and with these little navigators the difference isan important one. With a full cargo, a stiff head-wind is a greathindrance, but fresh and empty-armed they can face it with more ease.Virgil says bees bear gravel stones as ballast, but their only ballastis their honey bag. Hence, when I go bee-hunting, I prefer to get towindward of the woods in which the swarm is supposed to have takenrefuge.