Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1875-10-21
HUNTING FOR WILD HONEY.
Finding the Bee Hives in sSe Forests Of New
Jersey.

Finding the Bee Hives in sbe Forests Of New
Jersey.
All along that part of the valley of
the Pequamock which lies in Passiac
and Morris counties, New Jersey, and
among the Stony Brook and Green
Pond mountains, the wild country is
the favorite resort of sportsmen. There
are stretches of miles on the steep
sidehills where fields have not yet been
laid out, and where the smaller game
lives undisturbed, and at the foot of
the hills trackless swamps form refugees
almost as secure. The streams that
rush down the hills into the Pequan-
mock are filled with trout. at is a
country up here" said an old man who
had lived there since lie was boy,
s'and the new railroad is about all that
has saved us from being savages, for
we couldn't do much on our farms, and
it didn't pay us to cut wood, and SO
we just lived along as though we were
on the frontier" The iron mines OF
the district are its chief wealth, and in
separately associated with them are the
rugged hills in which the ore is found
and the none less rugged men who
pass half their lives under the ground.
The inhabitants, aside from the miners,
are few in number, and for their living
they depend far more upon their guns,
rods, and dogs than on markets and
agriculture. They shoot game, trap
fur bearing animals, and catch fish, and
to sweeten their coffee and cakes they
have the honey that they take from the
hives of wild bees. --.
The "white mans fly as the Indians
call the wild honey bee, lives on Just
such debatable ground between civil.
ization and solitude, and the average
white man likes to track the ''fy'' to
it's home and to scoop out from a hol-
low tree the stores of honey that have
accumulated for years. The wild bee
is found neither in those sections where
the white II an has not penetrated, nor
in the country where he has thriving
villages and cultivated fields. This
last fact is not due SO much to any
popularity of the bee in insisting upon
seqnestratlon, as to the white mans
notion, that, if he wants to gather a
sure harvest of honey in the fall he had
better keep his bees in heat hive not
far from bulldog, than in a marked
tree far from his house. There are
men in Morris county, like John Odell,
who, owning a patch of ground for
themselves, keep their bees on the
mountain tops and in the swamp lands
fer miles around, and they are safe.
No one but a professional bee hunter
could ever find the hives, and it Is an
unwritten law among them that they
shall respect each others prior rights.
A big blazed spot on the side of the
tree that holds the bees, and initial or
mark of the discoverer, are sufficient to
protect his rights ofproperty, and he
can lose his bees only by their swarm
ing and choosing another home. Then
unless fe is present to follow them
with his own eye from their old home
to their new, his claim upon them is
gone, and they will belong to him who
first finds them.
The professional bee hunter begins
his work early in the spring. He
stands close by some Towering shrub,
or by some patch of spring flowers,
from which he follows single bee
sometimes for miles, blazing his way
as he goes, until he sees it enter hol-
low tree or a cleft in the rocks. If
the hiye proves to be new property, the
finder establishes his claim with his
Ratchet, and takes careful bearings of
the spot, jotting them down with ref
erence to local streams and rocks, and
natural landmarks unintelligible TO
strangers, and as bewildering as Capt.
Kidd's log books have been to modern
gold seekers. He calculates his longi
tude, perhaps, from some tall tree con-
spicuous by its blighted top. or from a
pool that has historical interest to
HIM by reason of big trout which he
has caught there for the bee hunter is
usually fisherman and sportsman too.
Later in the season the best starting
ground is from the buckwheat fields
that are cultivated on the sunniest
spots of the hillsides; but no honey is
taken from the hives until late in the
fall, after the gathering season is over.
Then, if the storing place is accessible,
the bulk of the sweet treasure is taken
out, only enough being left to main
tain the busy workers through semi
torpid winter.
The non professional Hunters, who
are generally the miners on q Sunday
holiday, or the 4mplexSes Of The Mids