division of labor, their public spiritedness, their thrift, their
complex economies and their inordinate love of gain, seems as far
removed from a condition of rude nature as does a walled city or a
cathedral town. Our native bee, on the other hand, "the burly, dozing
humble-bee," affects one more like the rude, untutored savage. He has
learned nothing from experience. He lives from hand to mouth.
He luxuriates in time of plenty, and he starves in times of scarcity.
He lives in a rude nest or in a hole in the ground, and in small
communities; he builds a few deep cells or sacks in which he stores
a little honey and bee-bread for his young, but as a worker in wax he
is of the most primitive and awkward. The Indian regarded the
honey-bee as an ill-omen. She was the white man's fly. In fact she
was the epitome of the white man himself. She has the white man's
craftiness, his industry, his architectural skill, his neatness and
love of system, his foresight; and above all his eager, miserly habits.
The honeybee's great ambition is to be rich, to lay up great stores,
to possess the sweet of every flower that blooms. She is more than
provident. Enough will not satisfy her, she must have all she can get
by hook or by crook. She comes from the oldest country, Asia,
and thrives best in the most fertile and long-settled lands.

Yet the fact remains that the honey-bee is essentially a wild creature,
and never has been and cannot be thoroughly domesticated. Its proper
home is the woods, and thither every new swarm counts on going;
and thither many do go in spite of the care and watchfulness of the
bee-keeper. If the woods in any given locality are deficient in trees
with suitable cavities, the bees resort to all sorts of makeshifts;
they go into chimneys, into barns and outhouses, under stones, into
rocks, and so forth. Several chimneys in my locality with disused
flues are taken possession of by colonies of bees nearly every season.