>> One of the books by James Fenimore Cooper...

> I cannot locate the reference by James Fenimore Cooper...

I loved Cooper when I was a kid.  Read everything
multiple times.  The story is "The Oak Openings", 
sometimes titled "The Bee Hunter". 

It is the exciting story of Ben Boden, alias 
"Ben Buzz", alias "le Bourdon", alias "The Drone",
who had a nice little niche business in harvesting 
honey from "bee trees", and selling it to civilians.  

Read it here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/kpnng10.txt

or your library is 100% certain to have a copy.

This may be the only deliberate fiction ever written 
about Bee-Lining, but the specific techniques 
described are just as bogus as the bulk of what
was offered as "fact" up to and including Euell Gibbons'
laughable attempt in the 1970s.

But no way bees "preceded the settlers" by anything
more than the distance covered by swarms.  This story
verifies the short distance between bee trees and 
settlers, as Ben Boden has no trouble with his product
suffering from storage or transport before sale, and 
his means of transport are limited to walking or canoes.

I'm not saying more, as I'll not give away the story.

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