Part 3

Perhaps the tree I remember most vividly is the first one ever discovered unaided. When I hunted with Smith, he was invariably the one who first saw the bees. Since his death years ago, I have hunted with many people and only twice has my companion seen the bees before I did. There is something telepathic in the way an old hunter senses the nearness of bees, though even he is often fooled. In order to find a tree entirely on my own I had to escape from Smith’s tutelage. The great day came when I was about fifteen. I caught bees in front of my father’s house in Newport, N. H., and soon got a good line running straight up the side of Coit Mountain. There was a long upland pasture and beyond that the woods. Four moves took me to the forest edge and timing and numbers both told me the tree was near. I went up the line to look for the bees or for a clearing and soon found the swarm in a good-sized rock maple. I have received a number of great thrills in a long life, such as the notification that I had qualified for my doctorate, the reception in New York harbour in late December 1918 after the first World War, the citation from the President on receiving an honorary degree from Harvard, but, believe me, these thrills are all in class B as compared to the one I got when I first found a bee tree unaided.

The finding had an amusing sequel. The hole was about eight feet up the bole, too far to reach but near enough for the bees to be very conscious of an intruder. I started proudly to blaze my initials on the tree when I became conscious of a roar and the air seemed to grow dark above me. I turned and ran just in time, nor did I return to finish blazing the tree. Later, I related the event to George Smith who covered me with contumely. That a man should find a tree and then be driven off by the bees before he could blaze it, Smith regarded as a disgrace. He assured me that he would take up the tree himself without benefit of veil or gloves. I knew better than to argue, but on the appointed time when he, my brother and I went to take up the tree, I brought two veils and two pairs of gauntlets. When we got to the tree I set about collecting dry stuff for a smudge, a matter which Smith said was quite unnecessary. I was downhill from the tree when he went to work. I heard the axe fall perhaps a half a dozen times, and then there was a siren-like wail of profanity, and Smith came charging through the woods, a stream of angry bees behind him like a comet’s tail. That was one swarm which defeated the intrepid Smith. He borrowed my brother’s net and gloves, my brother went off and hid in the woods, and with net and glove protection and a smudge as well, we cut into the tree and took up the swarm. We got sixty pounds of honey.

In this article I have alluded many times to “taking up” a bee tree. The phrase may be colloquial, but it sticks. Smith never cut a bee tree. He always “took it up.” Moreover, he always referred to a bee as “he.” I am well aware that a working bee is a sterile female, but I cannot bring myself to call it “she.” There is nothing feminine about a working bee but its anatomy. “She” is “he” to me.

A word or two in more detail about the taking up of a bee tree may not be amiss. It brings us face to face with one unpleasant fact: the cruelty of the performance. For once a tree is taken up, the bees soon die. It is done in the autumn, and the cold soon kills the bees. They are deprived of food and shelter and have no time to gather more of the one or repair the other. They have laboured hard and are pitilessly robbed not only of the fruits of their labour, but of their very lives. They have been friendly during the running, and one has acquired an affection for them. How then can a reasonably tender-hearted person bring himself to destroy them?

A reason I can give, though I do not maintain that it is an excuse. Bees are perhaps the most thoroughly communistic creatures extant. The individual counts for nothing. The spirit of the hive is all. I am told that the life of a working bee during a heavy honey flow is only six or eight weeks. The workers work themselves until they shortly die; the hive is kept alive by the steady hatching of larvae who in turn carry on the work and die. The queen, who alone of the colony lives several years, has one nuptial flight and spends the rest of her life crawling over the comb and dropping an egg into each cell. Though she, more than anything else, is responsible for the spirit of the hive, she is more of a slave than her workers. As autumnal cold descends, work stops, and the bees torpidly cling together for warmth and maintain existence by consuming their store of honey. In the spring work and laying start, and the worn workers live just long enough to see the process started once more and enough larvae hatched to replace them and assure the continued existence of the hive. A bee will do everything for the hive; nothing for a fellow bee. A bee from a strange swarm, alighting on the comb, will be instantly attacked. On the other hand, if one tries the experiment of killing a bee on the comb, pinning him with the blade of a knife, he will set up a screaming buzz that sounds horribly anguished even to the human ear--and his fellow worker, loading half an inch away, will pay absolutely no attention to him. When a tree is taken up, the spirit of the hive is killed then and there. The queen is usually crushed or lost. The living thing that is the hive is extinguished, and the individual bees become mere insects doomed to winter destruction as are so many of the common flies. For the individual, the hunter has merely hastened dissolution by a little. He has killed the hive with the crash of the tree. I state this not as an apology, but as a fact, an explanation of why one’s conscience does not trouble one after taking up a tree. Illogical it may be, but it is true.

To return to the process. The days have lengthened, and October has come. Frost has killed the flowers. The bees have gathered the maximum of honey and will have begun to consume the store. It is time to take up. For equipment you will need a couple of axes, a crosscut saw, a sledge, and at least three stout steel wedges. Plenty of twine is essential. Take as many bee nets as necessary. These can be made extemporaneously out of black mosquito netting, but it is easier and safer to get the regular professional beekeeper’s veils. For every participant there should be a stout pair of linesman’s gauntlets. Wear old clothes, dungarees or old riding trousers. You are sure to get pretty well smeared with honey before you are done. Select a clear day or an overcast one, but not one with a threat of rain. If any water finds its way into the honey, it might as well be thrown away. It will surely ferment and spoil. You will need help, one or, better yet, two good woodsmen. In New Hampshire they are not hard to find. Probably they are working for you on your own place or for your neighbour. A few men have a rooted fear of bees and will be unavailable. The average lumberman, if promised reasonable protection, will come along and face the hard work for the fun. Taking up a bee tree is an exciting and thrilling performance. Lastly, bring plenty of receptacles for the honey. The humiliation of returning with five pounds of comb in a wash boiler is nothing as compared to the exasperation of filling a couple of buckets and finding you have no way of transporting the rest of the honey that is left in the tree.

Thus equipped you sally forth, hunter, woodsmen, and usually one or two camp followers in the way of guests or the curious. Your tree has been marked with your initials and a trail blazed to it with your hand axe so you have no difficulty in finding it. If it is on your property, well and good. If not, your New Hampshire farmer is usually a reasonable being if you treat him properly. A bee tree is not valuable. The mere fact that it has a hollow generally proves that it is not commercially valuable for anything but firewood, and after it is felled, if the owner wants to work it up into firewood, he is at liberty to do so. A proper approach and the promise of a jar or two of honey will usually win you permission to take up the tree, and the owner will come along to watch the fun. In all my many years of experience, I have only once been refused permission to take up a bee tree without payment.

Arriving at the tree a council of war will follow as to how best to fell it. If you are wise, you will allow this decision to be made by your woodsmen. If possible, it should be felled so that the hole is on one side or on top. If possible, it should not be felled across boulders, as it is very desirable not to have the hole split. Sometimes a tree will be so leaning, however, that there is no choice in the matter, and one must do the best one can. While the woodsmen are chipping the trunk and beginning to saw, the hunter should gather moss, the fronds of ferns, or other stuff to plug the hole when the tree is brought down. As the saw bites deeper and the scarf widens, the top of the tree will begin to sway. Now is the time for the hunter to don his veil and gloves. Before putting on the veil, it is well to turn up the collar of one’s jacket. It is not even an act of supererogation to tie tightly some twine around one’s waist. I once had an ambitious bee crawl up under my jacket, down through the band of my trousers, up under my shirt and undershirt and sting me in the small of the back. For protection of the legs, nothing is better than a light pair of fisherman’s rubber boots. Failing them, tie the bottom of your trousers or dungarees tightly round the tops of your shoes. Do _not_ wear low shoes. My companion did that the time we took up the ninety-seven pound tree. It was in a swamp and, in addition to the discomfort of wet feet, he found that a couple of dozen bees, stupefied by the smudge, fell into the water, revived, and relieved their feelings by swimming across to his ankles and stinging them. The next day his legs looked as though he had elephantiasis, and never thereafter could I get him to help me take up a bee tree. He could not seem to comprehend that the fault was his for wearing low shoes.

The cut deepens. The tree sways wider. It begins to heave, and one hears the first pistol-like reports of the cracking trunk. Slowly at first then with rapid momentum the tree falls with a thunderous roar. The axemen have snatched the saw from the cut and jumped back. The hunter rushes in, his hands full of moss, finds the aperture and plugs it before the bees can escape. At least he tries to. Sometimes he misses a subsidiary aperture, and some bees escape to enliven the proceedings. Sometimes the bole splits at the hollow and nothing can be done about that. Usually the hole can be plugged, and one can take one’s time preparing to open the hollow.

The woodsmen now put on their nets and gloves, if indeed they have not done so just before felling the tree. All debate as to whether the hollow extends above or below the hole, often a matter of guesswork. Then the saw comes into play again. The lumbermen cut deep scarves above and below the area where the honey is supposed to be. When rotten wood (and at times honey!) shows on the blade, one can be sure the hollow is entered. Then a wedge is placed at the base of one of the scarves and driven home with the sledge. Another, parallel to it, is driven in further down, and a third parallel at the lower scarf. As the wedges are driven home, the bole will split and a great section may be lifted off like a lid, exposing the honey and the bees. Of course, I am describing an ideal performance. Often the tree makes trouble, has to be sawed several times, and the opening enlarged with the axe. As the crack widens under the impact of the wedges, the bees pour out, and the fight is on. They will attack viciously, and one is aware of the ping of bees dashing themselves against the wire netting of the veil. If one has taken proper precautions, one is safe, though, to be honest, one usually gets stung once or twice in taking up the tree. Humans vary in susceptibility to bee stings. I am lucky in that they trouble me little, and usually the swellings are slight. On the other hand, my brother when once stung in the back of the hand, found his arm next morning thrice its normal size to the armpit. Those so constituted had better stop at home when a tree is taken up.

Once the fight is on it is well to get at the honey as soon as possible. Once the comb is well broken, the bees lose most of their fight. They will dash around in a bewildered way, bunch up on a bush, gorge themselves with spilled honey, and generally give evidence that the spirit of the hive is dead. Only a few doughty fighters will continue the battle. The comb will be in layers, up and down the length of the hollow, sometimes in pieces two or two and one-half feet long, with spaces between to admit the workers. In describing the equipment I neglected to add a large iron spoon and a couple of table knives. Usually it is necessary to cut the comb to get it into convenient sizes, and a good deal of honey will escape and run down into the hollow whence it can be spooned out and added to the spoil in the boiler. If a certain amount of chips, dead wood, and even dead bees and larvae are included, do not be disturbed. It will all be strained anyway. I have long since given up trying to save wild honey in the comb. When the last available drop is garnered, gather up your equipment and retreat. A hundred yards away and you are quite safe and can doff the nets and gloves that by this time are unbearably hot and sticky. Then you have your first taste of delicious honey.

Either wild honey is more tasty than the domestic variety or one’s exertions have made it seem so. My guests have always agreed that my wild honey is more aromatic than any one can buy. I imagine the answer is that strained wild honey is a blend, while domestic honey is generally of one variety. The taste of honey varies widely according to the flowers from which it is made. Clover honey, foolishly the most prized, is the most insipid. Golden rod honey is golden yellow and spicy. Buckwheat honey is, if anything, too pungent and heavy as molasses. The honey of Provence, made from wild thyme, has a special piney taste. In straining wild honey no attempt is made to separate the varieties, and the result is a blend, varying somewhat according to tree or season, but always more interesting than the domestic variety. Having sampled your honey and found it good, you can now go home and weigh your spoil. Unless, indeed, you have more than one tree to take up. I have taken up four in a day.

The rest is an epilogue. The straining of the honey is a matter for the distaff side. My wife makes large bags of cheesecloth, and the comb is broken up and introduced into these. They are then hung over pans in a warm kitchen. The honey drips slowly into the pans. One fears that a lot will be wasted, but not so. In thirty-six hours or more the comb will be dry beeswax, and the honey can be run off from the pans into glass jars. When sealed, the honey will keep indefinitely. After a while it will sugar into a kind of paste. I like this better for eating than the liquid variety, but if anyone disagrees, it is necessary only to place the jar in warm water for a while, and the honey will return to its liquid state.

So much for bee hunting and how it is done. This account has one virtue, perhaps only one: it is true. It is based on experience, and there is nothing in it that I have not done myself. I have relied on nothing that I have been told; there is no hearsay. I have made no attempt to discuss the life of the bee and the fascinating details of its domestic economy. For the curious in these matters, I recommend Maeterlinck’s _Life of the Bees_. I imagine what he says is true, but I cannot prove it by my own certain knowledge. It is certainly very beautiful and perhaps it is more important for a poet to make a thing beautiful than to make it true. These matters are not of my concern. For a more factual but equally fascinating account, I recommend _Bees’ Ways_ by George de Clyver Curtis.

I have also tried very hard to avoid purple passages. It has not been easy. Bee hunting is one of the most fascinating of sports, and one could go on describing different illuminating episodes for many pages. The sport combines almost everything that is desirable. It is played out of doors. It requires exercise both of the muscles and the brain. It is a sport of brawn and of craft. It can be played alone. Moreover, it can be played at any tempo. Time was when I could scramble up and down Croydon Mountain like a squirrel and could push the pace. That I can no longer do, but I can move more slowly, consider more carefully, draw on the craft and knowledge of long experience and find as many trees as when I was young and impetuous. The sport is one of infinite variety, of suspense, disappointment, perseverance, and triumph. You go out into the fields. Before you is a wooded mountain with ten thousand trees. One of those trees is a bee tree. With a very simple equipment you set out to find it, pitting your skill and your knowledge against the wiles of probably the most intelligent insect in the world. You try. You fail. You try again. You succeed. Your ostensible object is honey. It is the least of your rewards. The reward is when, after hours or days of trial and error, your eye catches the flash of wings in the tree and once more you are able to say checkmate in one of the most difficult, complicated, and fascinating games in the world.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.