Note 96 — Chapter XIII

The Americans employ several well-known methods to track bees to their hives. One of the most common, though ingenious modes, is to place a piece of bee-bread on a flat surface, a tile for instance, surrounding it with a circle of wet white paint. The bee, whose habit it is always to alight on the edge of any plane, has to travel through the paint to reach the bee-bread. When, therefore, she flies off, the observer can track her by the white on her body. The same operation is repeated at another place, at some distance from the first, and at right angles to the bee line just ascertained. The position of the hive is thus easily determined, for it lies in the angle made by the intersection of the bee lines. Another method is described in the Philosophical Transactions for 1721. The bee-hunter decoys, by a bait of honey, some of the bees into his trap; and when he has secured as many as he judges will suit his purpose, he encloses one in a tube, and, letting it fly, marks its course by a pocket compass. Departing to some distance, he liberates another, observes its course, and in this manner determines the position of the hive, upon the principle already detailed. These methods of bee-hunting depend upon the insect’s habit of always flying in a right line to its home. Those who have read Cooper’s tale of the “Prairie,” must remember the character of the bee-hunter, and the expression of “lining a bee to its hive.”—Insect Architecture, pp. 145, 146.