John Bachman wrote:

>I spent a few hours last fall hunting (lining) bees. Havn't found a feral
>colony yet but I'm hooked on the sport. Perhaps this year I will find my
>first "wild" hive.

>Do any of you have experiences, stories, techniques you would like to share?

   The sport of bee tree hunting has a long history.  In olden days,
hunters used a "bee box" with different chambers (for example, see p. 863
in the December 2001 issue of the AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL).  I believe Wyatt
Mangum also published an article on the subject in the past year or so in
the same journal, but I don't have time to look it up.

   My co-workers and I found the traditional techniques too inefficient for
the task we faced and developed our own method, one that enabled us to find
about 150 colonies.  We published our thoughts in 1992 in an article, now
readily available as item #12 on the following website:

http://www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/index.htm

                                                        Adrian

Adrian M. Wenner                    (805) 963-8508 (home phone)
967 Garcia Road                     (805) 893-8062  (UCSB FAX)
Santa Barbara, CA  93106  [http://www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/index.htm]

*****************************************************
*
*    "We not only believe what we see:
*  to some extent we see what we believe."
*
*                           Richard Gregory (1970)
*
*****************************************************