September 30.
After we got to the Baker Farm. to one of the open fields nearest to the tree I had marked, the first thing was to find some flowers and catch some honey - bees . We followed up the bank of the brook for some dis- tance , but the goldenrods were all dried up there , and the asters on which we expected to find them were very scarce . By the pond - side we had no better luck, the frosts perhaps having made flowers still more scarce there. We then took the path to Clematis Brook on the north of Mt. Misery, where we found a few of the Diplopappus linariifolius ( savory-leaved aster ) and one or two small white ( bushy ? ) asters, also A. undulatus and Solidago nemoralis rarely , on which they work in a sunny place ; but there were only two or three bum- blebees , wasps , and butterflies , yellow and small red , on them. We had no better luck at Clematis Brook .
Not a honey - bee could we find, and we concluded that we were too late , - that the weather was too cold, and so repaired at once to the tree I had found a hemlock two feet and a half in diameter on a side - hill a rod from the pond . I had cut my initials in the bark in the winter , for custom gives the first finder of the nest a right to the honey and to cut down the tree to get it and pay the damages , and if he cuts his initials on it no other hunter will interfere . Not seeing any signs of bees from the ground , one of the party climbed the tree to where the leading stem had formerly been broken off , leaving a crotch at about eighteen feet from the ground , and there he found a small hole into which he thrust a stick two or three feet down the tree , and dropped it to the bottom ; and , putting in his hand , he took out some old comb . The bees had probably died.
After eating our lunch we set out on our return. By the roadside at Walden on the sunny hillside sloping to the pond we saw a large mass of goldenrod and aster several rods square and comparatively fresh. Getting out of our wagon, we found it to be resounding with the hum of bees ( It was about 1 o'clock. )
There were far more flowers than we had seen elsewhere. Here were bees in great numbers, both bumblebees and honey-bees, as well as butterflies and wasps and flies.
So , pouring a mixture of honey and water into the empty comb in the tin box , and holding the lid of the tin box in one hand and the wooden box with the slides shut in the other , we proceeded to catch the honey - bees by shutting them in suddenly between the lid of the tin box and the large circular bottom of the wooden one , cutting off the flower - stem with the edge of the lid at the same time . Then , holding the lid still against the wooden box , we drew the slide in the bottom and also the slide covering the window at the top , that the light might attract the bee to pass up into the wooden box .
As soon as he had done so and was buzzing against the glass, the lower slide was closed and the lid with the flower removed, and more bees were caught in the same way. Then , placing the other , tin , box containing the comb filled with honeyed water close under the wooden one, the slide was drawn again, and the upper slide closed, making it dark; and in about a minute they went to feeding , as was ascertained by raising slightly the wooden box .
Then the latter was wholly removed , and they were left feeding or sucking up the honey in broad daylight . In from two to three minutes one had loaded himself and commenced leaving the box . He would buzz round it back and forth a foot or more , and then , sometimes , finding that he was too heavily loaded , alight to empty himself or clean his feet .
Then , starting once more , he would begin to circle round irregularly , at first in a small circle only a foot or two in diameter , as if to examine the premises that he might know them again , till , at length , rising higher and higher and cir- cling wider and wider and swifter and swifter , till his orbit was ten or twelve feet in diameter and as much from the ground , - though its centre might be moved to one side , - so that it was very difficult to follow him , especially if you looked against a wood or the hill , and you had to lie low to fetch him against the sky ( you must operate in an open space , not in a wood ) ; all this as if to ascertain the course to his nest ; then , in a minute or less from his first starting , he darts off in a bee - line , that is , as far as I could see him , which might be eight or ten rods , looking against the sky ( and you had to follow his whole career very attentively in- deed to see when and where he went off at a tangent ) , in a waving or sinuous ( right and left ) line , toward his nest .
We sent forth as many as a dozen .bees , which flew in about three directions , but all toward the village , or where we knew there were hives . They did not fly so almost absolutely straight as I had heard , but within three or four feet of the same course for half a dozen rods , or as far as we could see . Those belonging to one hive all had to digress to get round an apple tree .
As none flew in the right direction for us , we did not attempt to line them . In less than half an hour the first returned to the box still lying on the wood - pile , - for not one of the bees on the surrounding flowers dis- covered it , - and so they came back , one after another , loaded themselves and departed ; but now they went off with very little preliminary circling , as if assured of their course .
We were furnished with little boxes of red , blue , green , yellow , and white paint , in dry powder , and with a stick we sprinkled a little of the red powder on the back of one while he was feeding , gave him a little dab , - and it settled down amid the fuzz of his back and gave him a distinct red jacket .
He went off like most of them toward some hives about three quarters of a mile distant , and we observed by the watch the time of his departure . In just twenty - two minutes red jacket came back , with enough of the powder still on his back to mark him plainly . He may have gone more than three quarters of a mile . At any rate , he had a head wind to contend with while laden .
They fly swiftly and surely to their nests , never resting by the way , and I was surprised - though I had been informed of it - at the distance to which the village bees go for flowers. The tiny bee which we thought lived far away there in a flower-bell in that remote vale, he is a great voyager, and anon he rises up over the top of the wood and sets sail with his sweet cargo straight for his distant haven.
How well they know the woods and fields and the haunt of every flower!
If there are any sweet flowers still lingering on the hillside, it is known to the bees both of the forest and the village.
The rambler in the most remote woods and pastures little thinks that the bees which are humming so industriously on the rare wild flowers he is plucking for his herbarium, in some out-of-the-way nook, are, like himself, ramblers from the village, perhaps from his own yard, come to get their honey for his hives.
All the honey-bees we saw were on the blue-stemmed golden-rod (Solidago cæsia), which is late, lasts long, which emitted a sweet agreeable fragrance, not on the asters.
I feel the richer for this experience. It taught me that even the insects in my path are not loafers, but have their special errands. Not merely and vaguely in this world, but in this hour, each is about its business.
The flowers, perchance, are widely dispersed, because the sweet which they collect from the atmosphere is rare but also widely dispersed, and the bees are enabled to travel far to find it.
It is not in vain that the flowers bloom, and bloom late too, in favored spots.
How well bees know the
woods and fields and the haunt of
every flower!
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 30, 1852
