settle the problem as to the distance they go into the woods-whether
the tree is on this side of the ridge or in the depth of the forest on
the other side. So we shut up the box when it is full of bees and
carry it about three hundred yards along the wall from which we are
operating. When liberated, the bees, as they always will in such
cases, go off in the same directions they have been going; they do not
seem to know that they have been moved. But other bees have followed
our scent, and it is not many minutes before a second line to the woods
is established. This is called cross-lining the bees. The new line
makes a sharp angle with the other line, and we know at once that the
tree is only a few rods into the woods. The two lines we have
established form two sides of a triangle of which the wall is the base;
at the apex of the triangle, or where the two lines meet in the woods,
we are sure to find the tree. We quickly follow up these lines,
and where they cross each other on the side of the hill we scan every
tree closely. I pause at the foot of an oak and examine a hole near
the root; now the bees are in this tree and their entrance is on the
upper side near the ground, not two feet from the hole I peer into,
and yet so quiet and secret is their going and coming that I fail to
discover them and pass on up the hill. Failing in this direction,
I return to the oak again, and then perceive the bees going out in
a small crack in the tree. The bees do not know they are found out
and that the game is in our hands, and are as oblivious of our presence
as if we were ants or crickets. The indications are that the swarm is
a small one, and the store of honey trifling. In "taking up" a
bee-tree it is usual first to kill or stupefy the bees with the fumes
of burning sulfur or with tobacco smoke. But this course is
impracticable on the present occasion, so we boldly and ruthlessly
assault the tree with an ax we have procured. At the first blow
the bees set up a loud buzzing, but we have no mercy, and the side of