Wild Honey

Si H IiLV by J. Marshall Porter On rare occasions, any woods tramper might find a bee tree. . .but that would be only luck or chance. On the other hand, bee trees are rather numerous in most forests for the man who knows what he is looking for. Such a man knows how to get the bees to lead him to their store of delicious sweets. . .and to the outdoorsman who knows the difference in flavor there is no honey like wild honey. To him, finding a bee tree is only a matter of a few trips to the woods anytime during summer on a clear day any time from mid morning to mid afternoon. He has a keen eye, and will likely begin his search near a spring or some running water that is located where he can get a broad view of the sky through the tree tops. On a log or stump near his lookout, at the spring or stream, he will have a small amount of honey or a container like a saucer or can with some sweetened water in it. If bees come to his location for water they are certain to sample his baits of honey or sweetened water. When they load up on it, they will fly straight up into the sunlight and possibly make a circle or two, then fly straight to the tree that contains their hoard of wild honey. It seems that the bees who have taken the bait must pass along the word that ".hey have found a source of easy-to-get nectar because in a short time many bees are feeding from the baits. If all those bees fly up and go in the same direction the bee tree hunter knows he will find the tree in that direction, and he knows that bees rarely travel a mile from their trees. When Mr. Bee Tree Hunter sets out in the direction he observes the bees flying 6 from his bait, he begins to examine every large tree in his course. He will hardly travel fast because he knows that if he does he will be more likely to miss the bee tree than find it. At that time of year—June, July, or August—the forest is leafy, and knot holes or other cavity entrances may be hard to see. Also, the true bee tree hunter has almost a raccoon or bear's sense or instinct for finding wild honey and if the humidity is high and a breeze is blowing from the right direction he can smell it. When the bee tree is found, it will likely be either one of several species of large oak, or black gum because for some reason these are favored by colonies of wild bees. Because of the dense growth of branches and leaves near the trunk, gum trees are harder to detect working bees entering and leaving the cavities. In rare cases two bee trees may be found in the same general location, and that would depend largely upon whether or not there were many hollow trees suitable to being used by a colony of bees, and approved by their Queen. A bee tree hunter might be only testing his ingenuity or ability to find bee trees, and is out to make a kind of sport of finding as many trees as possible in one season, but ten chances to one he is a lover of wild honey and he intends to cut the tree later in the season. He knows that the store of honey will be much larger in late September. If the tree that he finds has not been marked by another hunter who found it before he did, he will cut a large X mark deep in plain view so everyone can see. It is a sort of unwritten law or gentleman's agreement that only a poor sport or rascal would cut a marked bee tree—though it has been done in the past, and bitter fights and even family feuds have started from this offense. Since a bee tree is hollow and considered a thing of little or no value as timber, the...