“I see some bees!” suddenly cried Laddie. “There’s a whole procession of them.”
He pointed off to one side and there, flitting through the sunlight and shadows of the forest could be seen a number of bees—dark bees with yellow stripes, or bands, on their bodies.
“That’s my kind of bees—the Italian sort,” said Farmer Joel when he had observed two or three near at hand gathering honey from wild flowers.
“But where do they have their nest—I mean their hive?” asked Russ.
“Oh, somewhere around here,” answered Farmer Joel. “We must look for a hollow tree. But move carefully. I don’t want any of you to get stung, though I brought my smoke machine. Guess I’ll start it going.”
He built a smudge fire inside the tin funnel with the bellows beneath it, and soon smoke was being puffed out into the air. This kept the bees away from the searchers for the honey tree.
Suddenly Russ exclaimed:
“I hear a humming sound. It’s like the humming your bees make in their hives, Mr. Joel.”
“I hear it, too,” said Violet.
They looked and listened, and then, off to one side, they saw many bees flying in through the hole in a tree. It was a hollow tree, that was evident, and it was a dead one.