Up the hill he went, looking more carefully at every tree, until the last tree below the rock had been reached. I was on the upper side of this tree and was almost sure that it must be in this one. The old hunter was on the lower side, gazing intently up the hill toward the rock. For some time he stood thus, then said, "You had better look behind you if you want to find the yaller bee." On turning round I saw a steady stream of bees going in and coming out from the very base of the rock. The mystery was a mystery no longer. They had baffled all the bee hunters in the community for three years, but at last they gave up the secret of their hidden home to Ike Ward.
Taking a piece of paper and writing thereon these words: "This bee was found by Ike Ward and pard; if any person find it please don't mislest it." He laid the paper above the entrance of the bees, and, laying a stone on it to keep it in place, we ended this our first bee-hunt together. This was only one of the many delightful trips which I took with the hunter, only one of the many valuable lessons received from him on this fascinating pastime. He has long since passed away, but the book of nature was open to him at all times and with a spirit that had no taint of selfishness in it, was always ready to impart knowledge to others.
CHAPTER II.
EARLY SPRING HUNTING.
Bees are very fond of salt in the early spring, and, in fact, in all parts of the season when brood rearing is in progress. Now we will start out some fine spring morning, take a hatchet or an ax and a polk of salt, and we will go up on the side of the mountain and chop out a little trough large enough to hold a quart or more, then sprinkle a little water, scented with oil of anise or bergamont, on the outside of this trough, then put a few corncobs and a handful of salt in the trough and place the trough in the fork of a small tree out of the way of any stock that may be pasturing in the woods. Our work is now done at this place. We can go on and put out several of these baits along the mountain. The first rain that comes will fill the trough, dissolve the salt, which will soak into the corncobs, and the scent which we placed on the outside of the trough will entice any bees that may be flying. After this we go home and a day or so after the first good rain that comes, we will go back and the chances are that we will have several good courses. Now we will cover the trough over with a bunch of leaves--green boughs--and sprinkle these freely with sweetened water. Take a pint bottle, fill it one-fourth full of granulated sugar and fill up with water. This is better than more sugar, for when the syrup is too thick it requires more time for the bees to load up and if too thick, in a short time the bushes become sticky.
After several bees have loaded up and gone home, we will take a cloth and saturate it with the same scent used on the trough, then take the bait--bunch of bushes--with us on the course, hunt a place as free from timber as possible and lay out bait on the top of a bush, the cloth beside it, and in a short time we should have plenty of bees. After determining on the course the same tactics are pursued until we arrive at the tree, or, if we have good reason to believe the bee stands in any certain group of trees and we fail to find the tree, to make sure that our ideas are correct we will move our bait off to one side of the original course and thus get a cross course, and at the junction of the first line of flight and this second line, the bees must certainly have their home. We must look at every tree with the utmost care, for it is a very easy matter to overlook a bee tree, even experienced bee hunters have done this. But if we take time to examine a tree from all sides we should always be able to locate them.