Carl stopped on the slope, surveyed the berry-thickets, the cabin, the jungly landscape for some minutes with an air of reflection.
“Bob,” he said in a weighty manner at last, “do you think this is a good bee district? Lots of honey-bearing plants?”
“Yes, I should say so,” replied his brother. “When we went through the swamps the other day we weren’t thinking much about honey plants, but there’s titi and willow along all the streams. I know I’ve seen hundreds of tupelo and black-gum trees. They yield honey in immense quantities, and will be blooming within the next six weeks. As for blackberry, you can see for yourself what a lot there is, and it makes the finest and whitest honey in the world. It’s just coming into bud. Why, what are you thinking about?”
“Just this,” said Carl. “We can’t do anything with these gums in their present shape. We couldn’t handle them: we couldn’t drive the bees out into our shipping-cages without wasting as much as we got. We’ll have to transfer all these bees into new, regular hives anyway. Why can’t we transfer them, rear Italian queens for them all, and turn this whole wreck into a modern outfit? Then late in May we can take a pound or two of bees out of every hive and ship them home, and still leave a working force with the hive here. We’d get a crop of honey here, and then another one up North. And we’d still have the bees here, so that we could go on doing the same thing year after year, shipping a hundred packages of bees to Canada every spring till we had all we could possibly handle. What do you think?”
Bob gazed at his younger brother somewhat staggered at this large scheme.
“How about the cost of putting all that through?” he said at last. “We’d have to have hives, brood-frames by the thousand, an extractor, a regular equipment. And we’ve spent more money down here already than we expected to.”
“Well, we’ve got cash enough to start with,” Carl returned. “Then think of the honey and wax we’ll get when we transfer these gums! Enough to pay for the new hives. Then there’ll be a regular crop to extract before we ship any bees. The thing ought to cover expenses as we go along.”
“Carl, you’re a genius,” said Bob. “You’ll either make us rich or wreck us. Most likely you’ll wreck us. But let’s explore this place a little further before we decide.”
They circled about the old cabin more widely, finding two or three more bee-trees; went over the ridge, and down to the lower ground where they examined the growths with great interest. Titi and willow grew profusely, as Bob said; but the bloom-time of these plants was over. There was a great gallberry marsh, however, a quarter of a mile from the cabin, due to flower in May; and all the lower ground was a tangle of the low, creeping, prickly dewberry-plants. These dewberries and blackberries were at present the most important of the honey-producing plants, for their honey was of the best quality, and they would be the next to blossom. Tupelo and gum-trees grew profusely all over the wet land, and, as Bob said, it looked as if there was ample pasturage for several hundred colonies.
They ate their lunch near the cabin, discussing the situation, and then, started to explore the bayou upwards. Carl was anxious to see the place where the river-men had refined the rosin, and it was highly desirable to ascertain if these unpleasant customers had left the neighborhood. Luckily the pirates had seen nobody but Sam during the affair, so that both boys felt there would be no serious danger even in a meeting; yet they rowed up the muddy stream with great caution, and peeped and listened before they ventured to push through the fringe of drooping green that cut off the houseboat’s old moorage.