"business end" of a bee, it will sting even though its head be off.
But the bee carries the antidote to its own poison. The best remedy
for bee sting is honey, and when your hands are besmeared with honey,
as they are sure to be on such occasions, the wound is scarcely more
painful than the prick of a pin. Assault your bee-tree, then, boldly
with your ax, and you will find that when the honey is exposed every
bee has surrendered and the whole swarm is cowering in helpless
bewilderment and terror. Our tree yields only a few pounds of honey,
not enough to have lasted the swarm till January, but no matter;
we have the less burden to carry.

In the afternoon we go nearly half a mile farther along the ridge to a
cornfield that lies immediately in front of the highest point of the
mountain. The view is superb; the ripe autumn landscape rolls away to
the east, cut through by the great placid river; in the extreme north
the wall of the Catskills stands out clear and strong, while in the
south the mountains of the Highlands bound the view. The day is warm
and the bees are very busy there in that neglected corner of the field,
rich in asters, flea-bane, and golden-rod. The corn has been cut,
and upon a stout, but a few rods from the woods, which here drop
quickly down from the precipitous heights, we set up our bee-box,
touched again with the pungent oil. In a few moments a bee has found
it; she comes up to leeward, following the scent. On leaving the box
she goes straight toward the woods. More bees quickly come, and it is
not long before the line is well established. Now we have recourse to
the same tactics we employed before, and move along the ridge to
another field to get our cross line. But the bees still go in almost
the same direction they did from the corn stout. The tree is then
either on the top of the mountain or on the other or west side of it.
We hesitate to make the plunge into the woods and seek to scale those