I want to be highly visible to the bees, as they’ll be using me as a landmark to return to the bee box the first few times. While bee hunting, I like to wear a light colored shirt and a blue hat. Optional are a GPS receiver and a computer with a topographical mapping program (I use DeLorme Topo USA and Topo Tools). If you’d like to try your hand at finding a wild bee tree, you’ll need the following pieces of equipment: a bee box (see sidebar on page 29 for directions on how to build one) a 2 × 3-inch piece of empty honeycomb (this can be obtained from a beekeeper) some artificial nectar a stick about 1 inch thick and 5 feet long, sharpened at one end (you can also use a crowbar) a compass a watch a brightly colored hat with sun brim and a pair of binoculars. Purposely finding a bee tree is possible because worker bees have a habit of returning in a straight line to the hive from a foraging area, hence the term “bee line.” I’ll describe below the equipment needed and the methods that I use in what the oldtimers called “lining bees”, a combination of techniques passed down from my father and my own innovations. Honeybees have enough problems, what with mites and mysterious colony disappearances.īut locating these “bee trees” can still be a challenging and rewarding way to combine woodsmanship, map and compass, GPS, and computer skills into one exercise. In order to obtain the honey and the bees, the tree often had to be cut down and the honeycomb removed, in the process destroying the hive, so it’s not something that should be done today. Harvesting a “wild” bee tree was the way many local people used to get honey and new colonies of bees. Often, they’ll build their hive in a hollow tree deep in the forest. Honeybees remain wild enough to survive on their own, and they can do so miles from the orchards and other food sources with which we associate them. Honeybees have been domesticated for millennia, but they don’t always rely on the housing beekeepers provide them in exchange for harvesting their honey.
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