enables them to survey the scene, when they seem to say, "Why, this is
home," and down they come again; beholding the wreck and ruins once
more they still think there is some mistake, and get up a second or
a third time and then drop back pitifully as before. It is the most
pathetic sight of all, the surviving and bewildered bees struggling
to save a few drops of their wasted treasures.

Presently, if there is another swarm in the woods, robber-bees appear.
You may know them by their saucy, chiding, devil-may-care hum. It is
an ill wind that blows nobody good, and they make the most of the
misfortune of their neighbors; and thereby pave the way for their own
ruin. The hunter marks their course and the next day looks them up.
On this occasion the day was hot and the honey very fragrant, and a
line of bees was soon established S. S. W. Though there was much
refuse honey in the old stub, and though little golden rills trickled
down the hill from it, and the near branches and saplings were
besmeared with it where we wiped our murderous hands, yet not a drop
was wasted. It was a feast to which not only honey-bees came, but
bumble-bees, wasps, hornets, flies, ants. The bumble-bees, which at
this season are hungry vagrants with no fixed place of abode, would
gorge themselves, then creep beneath the bits of empty comb or
fragments of bark and pass the night, and renew the feast next day.
The bumble-bee is an insect of which the bee-hunter sees much.
There are all sorts and sizes of them. They are dull and clumsy
compared with the honey-bee. Attracted in the fields by the
bee-hunter's box, they will come up the wind on the scent and blunder
into it in the most stupid, lubberly fashion.

The honey-bee that licked up our leavings on the old stub belonged to
a swarm, as it proved, about half a mile farther down the ridge,