jonathan had taken me to see the "bee tree" down in the "old john lane lot." judging from the name, the spot must have been a clearing at one time, but now it is one of the oldest pieces of woodland in the locality. the bee tree, a huge chestnut, cut down thirty years ago for its store of honey, is sinking back into the forest floor, but we could still see its hollow heart and charred sides where the fire had been made to smoke out the bees.
"jonathan," i said, "i'd like to find some wild honey. it sounds so good."
"no better than tame honey," said jonathan.
"it sounds better. i'm sure it would be different scooped out of a tree like this than done up neatly in pound squares."
"tastes just the same," persisted jonathan prosaically.[pg 156]
"well, anyway, i want to find a bee tree. let's go bee-hunting!"
"what's the use? you don't know a honeybee from a bumblebee."
"well, you do, of course," i answered, tactfully.
jonathan, mollified, became gracious. "i never went bee-hunting, but i've heard the old fellows tell how it's done. but it takes all day."
"so much the better," i said.
and that night i looked through our books to find out what i could about bees. over the fireplace in what was once the "best parlor" is a long, low cupboard with glass doors. here bibles, albums, and a few other books have always been stored, and from this i pulled down a fat, gilt-lettered volume called "the household friend." this book has something to say about almost everything, and, sure enough, it had an article on bees. but the household friend had obviously never gone bee-hunting, and the only real information i got was that bees had four wings and six legs.
"so has a fly," said jonathan, when i came to him with this nugget of wisdom.[pg 157]
the neighbors gave suggestions. "you want to go when the yeller-top's in bloom," said one.
"yellow-top?" i questioned, stupidly enough.
"yes. yeller-top—'t's in bloom now," with a comprehensive wave of the hand.
"oh, you mean goldenrod!"
"well, i guess you call it that. yeller-top we call it. you find one o' them old back fields where the yeller-top's come in, 'n' you'll see bees 'nough."
another friend told us that when we had caught our bee we must drop honey on her back. this would send her to the hive to get her friends to groom her off, and they would all return with her to see where the honey came from. this sounded improbable, but we were in no position to criticize our information.
as to the main points of procedure all our advisers agreed. we were to put honey in an open box, catch a bee in it, and when she had loaded up with honey, let her go, watch her flight and locate the direction of her home. when she returned with friends for more[pg 158] honey, we were to shut them in, carry the box on in the line of flight, and let them go again. we were to keep this up until we reached the bee tree. it sounded simple.
we got our box—two boxes, to be sure of our resources—baited them with chunks of comb, and took along little window panes for covers. then we packed up luncheon and set out for an abandoned pasture in our woods where we remembered the "yeller-top" grew thick. our new england fall mornings are cool, and as we walked up the shady wood road jonathan predicted that it would be no use to hunt bees. "they'll be so stiff they can't crawl. look at that lizard, now!" he stooped and touched a little red newt lying among the pebbles of the roadway. the little fellow seemed dead, but when jonathan held him in the hollow of his hand for a few moments he gradually thawed out, began to wriggle, and finally dropped through between his fingers and scampered under a stone. "see?" said jonathan. "we'll have to thaw out every bee just that way."
but i had confidence that the sun would take the place of jonathan's hand, and refused[pg 159] to give up my hunt. from the main log-road we turned off into a path, once a well-trodden way to the old ox pastures, but now almost overgrown, and pushed on through brier and sweet-fern and huckleberry and young birch, down across a little brook, and up again to the "old sharon lot," a long field framed in big woods and grown up to sumac and brambles and goldenrod. it was warmer here, in the steady sunshine, sheltered from the crisp wind by the tree walls around us, and we began to look about hopefully for bees. at first jonathan's gloomy prognostications seemed justified—there was not a bee in sight. a few wasps were stirring, trailing their long legs as they flew. then one or two "yellow jackets" appeared, and some black-and-white hornets. but as the field grew warmer it grew populous, bumblebees hummed, and finally some little soft brown bees arrived—surely the ones we wanted. cautiously jonathan approached one, held his box under the goldenrod clump, brought the glass down slowly from above—and the bee was ours. she was a gentle little thing, and did not seem to resent her treatment at all, but dropped[pg 160] down on to the honeycomb and fell to work. jonathan had providently cut a three-forked stick, and he now stuck this into the ground and set the box on the forks so that it was about on a level with the goldenrod tops. then he carefully drew off the glass, and we sat down to watch.
"shouldn't you think she must have had enough?" i said, after a while—"oh! there she comes now!"
our bee appeared on the edge of the box, staggering heavily. she rubbed her legs, rubbed her wings, shook herself, girded up her loins, as it were, and brushed the hair out of her eyes, and finally rose, turning on herself in a close spiral which widened into larger and larger circles above the box, and at length, after two or three wide sweeps where we nearly lost track of her, she darted off in a "bee-line" for a tall chestnut tree on a knoll to the westward.
"will she come back?" we wondered. five minutes—ten—fifteen—it seemed an hour.
"she must have been a drone," said jonathan.[pg 161]
"or maybe she wasn't a honeybee at all," i suggested, gloomily. "she might be just another kind of hornet—no, look! there she is!"
i could hardly have been more thrilled if my fairy godmother had appeared on the goldenrod stalk and waved her wand at me. to think that the bee really did play the game! i knelt and peered in over the side of the box. yes, there she was, all six feet in the honey, pumping away with might and main through her little red tongue, or proboscis, or whatever it was. we sank back among the weeds and waited for her to go. as she rose, in the same spirals, and disappeared westward, jonathan said, "if she doesn't bring another one back with her this time, we'll try dropping honey on her back. you wait here and be a landmark for the bee while i try to catch another one in the other box."
i settled down comfortably under the yellow-top, and instantly i realized what a pleasant thing it is to be a landmark. for one thing, when you sit down in a field you get a very different point of view from that when you stand. goldenrod is different looked at from beneath, with sky beyond it; sky is different[pg 162] seen through waving masses of yellow. moreover, when you sit still outdoors, the life of things comes to you; when you are moving yourself, it evades you. down among the weeds where i sat, the sun was hot, but the breeze was cool, and it brought to me, now the scent of wild grapes from an old stone wall, now the spicy fragrance of little yellow apples on a gnarled old tree in the fence corner, now the sharp tang of the goldenrod itself. the air was full of the hum of bees, and soon i began to distinguish their different tones—the deep, rich drone of the bumblebees, the higher singsong of the honeybees, the snarl of the yellow-jacket, the jerky, nasal twang of the black-and-white hornet. they began to come close around me; two bumblebees hung on a frond of goldenrod so close to my face that i could see the pollen dust on their fur. crickets and grasshoppers chirped and trilled beside me. all the little creatures seemed to have accepted me—all but one black-and-white hornet, who left his proper pursuits, whatever they may have been, to investigate me. he buzzed all around me in an insistent, ill-bred way that was annoying.[pg 163] he examined my neck and hair with unnecessary thoroughness, flew away, returned to begin all over again, flew away and returned once more; but at last even he gave up the matter and went off about his business.
butterflies came fluttering past me:—big, rust-colored ones pointed in black; pale russet and silver ones; dancing little yellow ones; big black ones with blue-green spots, rather shabby and languid, as at the end of a gay season. darning-needles darted back and forth, with their javelin-like flight, or mounted high by sudden steps, or lighted near me, with that absolute rigidity that is the positive negation of movement. a flying grasshopper creeping along through the tangle at my feet rose and hung flutteringly over one spot, for no apparent reason, and then, for no better reason, dropped suddenly and was still. a big cicada with green head and rustling wings worked his way clumsily among a pile of last year's goldenrod stalks, freed himself, and whirred away with the harsh, strident buzz that dominates every other sound while it lasts, and when it ceases makes the world seem wonderfully quiet.[pg 164]
our bee had gone and come twice before jonathan returned. "hasn't she brought anybody yet? well, here goes!" he took a slender stem of goldenrod, smeared it with honey, and gently lodged a drop on the bee's back, just where she could not by any possible antics get it off for herself. when the little thing flew she fairly reeled under her burden, tumbled down on to a leaf, recovered herself, and at last flew off on her old line.
"now, let's go and cook luncheon," said jonathan, "and leave her to work it out."
"but how can i move? i'm a landmark."
"oh, leave your handkerchief. anything white will do."
so i tied my handkerchief to a goldenrod stalk, and we went back to the brook. we made a fire on a flat stone, under which we could hear the brook running, broiled our chops on long, forked sticks, broiled some "beef-steak" mushrooms that we had found on a chestnut stump, and ended with water from the spring under the giant birch tree. blue jays came noisily to investigate us; a yellow-hammer floated softly down to the branch[pg 165] overhead, gave a little purring cluck of surprise, and flew off again, with a flare of tawny-yellow wings. in the warmth of the indian summer noon the shade of the woods was pleasant, and i let jonathan go back to the bees while i lay on a dry slope above the brook and watched the slim, tall chestnuts swaying in the wind. it is almost like being at sea to lie in the woods and look up at the trees. their waving tops seem infinitely far away, but the sky beyond seems very near, and one can almost feel the earth go round.
as i lay there i heard a snapping of twigs and rustling of leaves. it was the wrong direction for jonathan, and i turned gently, expecting nothing smaller than a deer—for deer are growing plentiful now in old new england—and met the shameless face of a jerky little red squirrel! he clung to a chestnut trunk and examined me, twitching all over the while, then whisked himself upside down and looked at me from that standpoint, mounted to a branch, clung to the under side and looked again, pretended fright and vanished behind the limb, only to peer over it the next moment to see what i looked like from there—all the[pg 166] time clucking and burring like an alarm clock under a pillow.
the rude thing had broken the spell of quiet, and i got up, remembering the bees, and wandered back to the sunny field, now palpitating with waves of heat. jonathan was nowhere to be seen, but as i approached the box i discovered him beside it flat on his back among the weeds.
"sh-h-h," he warned, "don't frighten them. there were a lot of them when i got here and i've been watching their line. they all go straight for that chestnut."
"what are you lying down for?" i asked.
"i had to. i nearly twisted my neck off following their circles. i'm no owl."
i sat down near by and we watched a few more go, while others began to arrive.
"that dab of honey did the work," said jonathan. "we might as well begin to follow up their line now."
waiting till there were a dozen or more in the box, he gently slid on the glass cover, laid a paper over it to darken it, and we set out. ten minutes' walking brought us past the big chestnut and out to a little clearing. jonathan[pg 167] set the box down on a big rock where it would show up well, laid a handkerchief beside it, drew off the glass, and crouched. a bunch of excited bees burst out and away, without noticing their change of place. "they'll never find their way back there," said jonathan regretfully; "they'll go straight back to the sharon lot."
but there were others in the box, still feeding, who had not been disturbed by the move, and these he touched with honey drops. they staggered off, one by one, orienting themselves properly as they rose, and taking the same old line off to the westward. this was disappointing. we had hoped to see them turn back, showing that we had passed their home tree. however, there was nothing to do but sit and wait for them. in six minutes they began to come back, in twos and threes—evidently the honey drops on their shoulders had told the hive a sufficiently alluring story. again we waited until the box was well filled with them, then closed it and went on westward. two more moves brought us to a half-cleared ridge from which we could see out across country. to the westward, and sadly[pg 168] near, was the end of the big woods and the beginning of pastures and farmland.
jonathan scrutinized the farms dotting the slopes. "see that bunch of red barns with a white house?" he said "that's bill morehead's. he keeps bees. bet we've got bees from his hive and they'll lead us plumb into his back yard."
it did begin to seem probable, and we took up our box in some depression of spirits. two more stops, the bees still perversely flying westward, and we emerged in pastures.
"here's our last stop," said jonathan. "if they don't go back into that edge we've just left, they're morehead's. there isn't another bit of woods big enough to hold a bee tree for seven miles to the west of us."
there was no rock to set the box on, so we lay down on the turf; jonathan set the box on his chest, and partly slid the cover. he had by this time learned the trick of making the bees, even the excited ones, come out singly. we watched each one as she escaped, circle above us, circle, circle against the clear blue of the afternoon sky, then dart off—alas!—westward. as the last one flew we[pg 169] sat up, disconsolately, and gazed across the pasture.
"tame bees!" muttered jonathan, in a tone of grief and disgust. "tame bees, down there in my old woodlots. it's trespass!"
"you might claim some of morehead's honey," i suggested, "since you've been feeding his bees. but, then," i reflected, "it wouldn't be wild honey, and what i wanted was wild honey."
we rose dejectedly, and jonathan picked up the box. "aren't you going to leave it for the bees?" i asked. "they'll be so disappointed when they come back."
"they aren't the only ones to be disappointed," he remarked grimly. "here, we'll have mushrooms for supper, anyway." and he stooped to collect a big puff-ball.
we walked home, our spirits gradually rising. after all, it is hard to stay depressed under a blue fall sky, with a crisp wind blowing in your face and the sense of completeness that comes of a long day out of doors. and as we climbed the last long hill to the home farm we could not help feeling cheerful.
"bee-hunting is fun," i said, "even if they are tame bees."
"it's the best excuse for being a loafer that i've found yet," said jonathan; "i wonder the tramps don't all go into the business."
"and some day," i pursued hopefully, "we'll go again and find really wild bees and really wild honey."
"it would taste just the same, you know," jeered jonathan.
and i was so content with life that i let him have the last word.
