Hunting the Wild Honey Tree

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ESTABLISH THE BEELINE

Whether you're using a bait box or a sugar-water dish, carefully watch the flight of each bee as she leaves. She'll first lift off and fly in circles around the bait, in order to get her bearings and to fix the location of the free feast in her mind. As she flies, the circles will get bigger and bigger, and then—zing!—she'll be gone. It's easy to lose sight of your quarry at that point, so make a mental note of the direction of each bee's departure, relative to some landmark (perhaps a tree or a building). After observing several such paths, you can determine an average heading . . . which is your beeline.

Because the outgoing insects always circle before departing, it's sometimes easier to establish the general direction of the colony by moving a few yards away from the bait, where you can keep an eye on arriving foragers. They'll be coming in a straight line from their home until they get very near the bait . . . at which point they, too, will begin to circle.

Eventually, after studying a number of comings and goings, you'll determine your beeline, and the honey tree should be somewhere along that line . . . but you'll still have to figure out just where. One way to do so is to relocate your lure several hundred yards down the beeline toward the colony. There, reestablish the direction—again using either your sugar-water dish or a bait box—to get a fix from a point closer to your target. (The best time to relocate is when you have some 10 to 20 bees working the bait. When using a box, trap the remaining bees inside by covering the bottom during the move.)

If the feeders don't return to your bait within 20 minutes, they probably aren't going to, perhaps because you've gone past the bee tree. Should you get no action, then, just go back to the previous location . . . catch another load of bees . . . and, this time, move only half as far along the beeline—before trying again—as you previously did.

Another way to go about locating the colony is to mark a bee, using a piece of chalk and a small artist's brush. Just wait until the insects are busily working the bait, then scrape a little chalk dust loose . . . moisten it with saliva . . . dip in the paint brush . . . select a bee that appears to be particularly engrossed in the sugar water . . . and give her a swipe or two across the top of her abdomen. Then note the time of your target's departure and return, and figure that it takes about 5.2 minutes—on the average—for a bee to fly one-quarter mile.

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