Adrian Wenner wrote:
> 
> >  I'd be interested in some of the basics [on beelining] if you would like
> >to >share it here!
> Try the following 19th century methods if you wish: An 1832 (Quaker) visitor 
to the Australian colonies observed the following method of bee-hunting 
aborigines “During the heat of the day the bees resort to the neighbouring 
streams in order to obtain water. They are there sought for by the natives; 
and on one being discovered, its body is cautiously wetted with saliva. While 
it remains imprisoned during the act of drying, the light white down of the 
Cockatoo, being dropped upon it, becomes by this means, closely cemented to 
its body. So soon as it again recovers the use of its wings, the insect flies 
away, bearing along with it this conspicuous mark, which is sufficiently 
heavy to retard its progress, and enables the keen eye of the native, to 
trace it to its horde.”
 
I have copies of two period pencil drawings of aborigines doing just this, 
the first is of a native patiently waiting by a source of water, the second, 
running like the wind after the tagged bee. 
 
An anonymous clergyman related the following in 1866 regarding Australia’s 
native Trigona social bee “The native bee has no sting, is dark in colour, 
slender in body, and not much larger than the common house-fly. The 
aborigines adopt a very ingenious method of discovering their hives; catching 
one, which they can always readily do where there is water, they fix with 
gum, which is easily obtained from any of the trees beside them, a small 
particle of white down upon its back, let it fly away, and keep running 
after, holding their eyes intently upon it, till they see it alight at its 
hive, which is always found in a hole in an upstanding tree. One native, with 
a tomahawk or a stone adze in hand, cuts notches in the tree for his big toes 
to rest upon, and in this way making notches as he ascends, using them as 
steps in a ladder, and holding by the tree with one of his hands, he mounts 
and very speedily cuts out the honey-comb at the place where the bee was seen 
to enter. The bark from the knot of a tree serves for a dish to hold the 
comb, and it is soon devoured at one meal.”
 
Enter the European honeybee, add smoke to subdue the bees and the aborigine 
could transfer this method to A. Mellifera.
 
from Peter Barrett, Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia. (Not so cold 
here for Christmas Day as for you northern hemisphere beekeepers, a real 
scorcher, around 39+ degrees C. (100+F.) The bees hang out at dusk and last 
light, 8:30pm, and even later as they cure the heavy loads of nectar flooding 
in.) Seasons greetings from downunder.