XXXIII. HUNTING BEE TREES.

 

Wild honey was one of the table comforts in the early days. Bee trees were numerous everywhere through the thick woods, and it was no trick at all for an expert bee hunter to find enough bee trees to keep the neighborhood in honey the year round.

 

Wild bees made their home in the hollow limbs of trees, or in the hollow places in the trunks of trees, if they were not too large and were properly protected from the sun and the inclemency of the weather.

 

By watching the direction of the working bee, after he had secured his load of honey extracted from the flowers, it was not much trouble to find the tree, as the bee, after arising from the flower beds a short distance in the air, circled around a time or two as if to find his bearing, when he would flyaway in a straight direction as if he had been shot out of a gun. After starting he never varied in the least from his course, and this is how originated the saying, ''as straight as a bee line." If the bee hunter could follow a straight line he could usually find the tree. If he lost his course

 

 

180                                          HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.

 

all he had to do was to go back and try it over again. If he was careful he could keep in the direction by getting two or three trees some distance apart in line and continuing in this way until the tree was found, or until he had given up the hunt.

 

Often bee trees could be found by walking through the woods on bright sunny days and looking into the tops of the trees and watching for the bees coming and going.

 

When a bee tree was found it was marked and the way to it blazed so that it might be found when the time came to cut it down. When the tree was felled it wasn’t quite safe to go near where the bees were until they recovered from their fright and settled down to business again.

 

Securing the honey was, so far as the innocent industrious bees were concerned, a cruel piece of business. About sunset, after the bees had all returned from their daily labor, the entrance to the hive, generally a small knot hole, was fastened securely except a small space into which a stem of a common clay or cob pipe was inserted. The bowl of the pipe was generally filled with pulverized home-grown tobacco leaves and lighted. A thin piece of cloth was fastened over the bowl and the “robber” blew the smoke in among the bees, which, within a short time, had the effect of making them deathly sick so that they were unable to offer resistance. The limb was then chopped into  and the honey comb removed, deposited in wooden buckets and carried home.

 

Sometimes most of the bees would die from the effects of the smoke, but many of them, after the effects of the smoke but many of them, after the effects passed off, would recover, and if there was a sufficient number with the necessary officers, a king, queen, etc., they would congregate, hold a consultation, and generally fly away in search of another home to begin life over again.

 

Sometimes the bees would get after the robbers with their “business end” and sting them severely. To some the sting of a bee was rank poison, and if inflicted on the face, frequently the eyes would be swollen shut in a few minutes. It was also, in most cases, the death of the bee.

 

The sting which is found at the end of the abdomen, is a very formidable weapon. It consists of a sheath enclosing two needle shaped darts of exceeding fineness, placed side by side. Toward the end they are armed with minute teeth, like those of a saw, whence it happens that it is frequently unable to withdraw the sting from the enemy it has pierced, causing its won death. When the sting enters the flesh the poison is squeezed into the wound from a bag near its base by a powerful muscular action. It is of so active a character that, it is said by those who profess to know, a single sting will kill a bee or other insect within a very short time. Animals have been known to be killed, and men nearly so my enraged swarms of bees whose hives have been accidentally knocked over.

 

With the possible exception of the ant, no other insect shows such wonderful knowledge and skill in the orderly manner in which they prepare their hives with honeycomb cells, fill them with honey extracted from flowers, and hermetically seal them for use when wanted.

 

The bee has been a prolific subject for poets and authors time out of mind, and has been pointed to as an example of industry for the young to follow. You remember, of course, when you first began going to school “in yander,” when you didn’t get your lessons, how the teacher told you that

 

HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.                                     181

 

were lazy and good for nothing, like the drone in the bee hive that be made to work, and how he complimented the busy bees by repeating for your edification these well remembered lines :

 

How doth the little busy bee,

Improve each shining hour,

Gathering honey all the day,

From every fragrant flower!

 

Shakespeare, who seems to have had knowledge of almost everything, has this to say on the subject: "Bees, by a law of nature, teach the art of order to a peopled kingdom. They have a king and officers of sorts; where some, like magistrates correct at home; others, like merchants, venture trade abroad; others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, make boot upon the summer's velvet buds; which pillage they, with mercy march, bring home to the tent royal of their superior; who, burled in his majesty, surveys the singing masons building roofs of gold; the civil citizens kneading up the honey; the poor mechanic porters crowding in their heavy burdens at his narrow gate; the sad-eyed justice with his surly hum, delivering o'er to executor's pale the lazy yawning drone.

 

Those who have made a study of the habits of bees have ascertained that a hive consists of three kinds, females, males and workers. The females are called queens, not more than one of which can live in the same hive, 'the presence of one being necessary for its establishment and maintenance. The males are called drones and may exist by hundreds in a hive. The workers, or neuters, as they have been called, from the supposition that they belonged to neither sex, are the most numerous. The queen lays the eggs from which the bees are perpetuated. After impregnation takes place, she is capable of laying eggs within thirty-six hours. Before depositing an egg she examines whether the cell is prepared to receive it and adapted for its future condition, for queens, males and workers have cells specially constructed for them. When the cells are ready, the queen goes from one to another, with scarcely any repose, laying about 200 eggs daily. The eggs first laid are said to be workers for ten or twelve days, then follows the laying of male eggs from ten to twenty days, less numerous than the workers in the proportion of about one to thirty. When the cells for queens are constructed she deposits a single egg in each, and her work is done. When the bees are hatched the queen departs with a swarm, and a new queen is liberated to take her place. The males do not work and are of no use except in the performance of their duties in procreation, after which they soon die, or are killed. The workers collect the honey, secrete the wax, build the cells, and feed and protect the young.