Bee Coursing and Hive Robbing
Though honey bees are not native to North America, coursing the bees and robbing their hives have been both challenging sport and a source of income for many Taney Countians. In the early days of settlement, the honey was used domestically and sometimes sold. Beeswax was extremely valuable and was often used as a medium for exchange (Ingenthron 309). Not many people still stalk the wild bees; however, bee-keeping has become an engaging sideline for several bee enthusiasts.
Honey bees were brought to North America in the mid-1700s. First the German black bees and later the Italian yellow bees were imported by European colonists. The bees made their ways westward, infiltrating the land east of the Mississippi River long before the white settlers did (309). The Missouri Ozarks were ideal for bee colonies: native plants produced necessary nectar and the native timber provided ideal spots for hive building.
Early settlers made use of the wild honey for domestic purposes: it provided a delicacy for sweetening favorite recipes, and it was an important ingredient in several home remedies. Occasionally, honey was even used in place of axle grease (315). The beeswax could also be used in all sorts of ways on the homestead. Later, some settlers began selling the honey and especially the wax, which was melted and shaped into cakes to take to market.
Getting the honey and comb, however, was no simple endeavor. Planning began long before the hive was ever discovered, and the sport itself required perseverance and athletic agility. Coursing and hive robbing took place in six definite stages.
The first stage was frequently referred to as bee baiting. The purpose of the baiting was to attract the bees so that they could be followed, or coursed, to their hives. Some settlers used highly original concoctions to set as bait. Though many bee hunters kept their concoctions secret, commonly used ingredients were such things as honey, brown sugar, maple sap or syrup, perfume, kraut juice, and urine (310). Other hunter simply set out corn cobs that had been soaked overnight in sweetened water. Once the bees became attracted to the bait, the hunter was ready to begin stage two.
The second stage is called coursing the bees. When the bees had eaten as much as they could hold of the bait, they rose and flew straight toward their hive (making a "beeline"). The hunter made note of the direction, either following the bees with his bait until he came upon the hive or performing more complicated geometric calculations. One coursing method for an avid bee hunter was to chart the direction the bees flew after they had taken the first bait, and then moving the bait to a different spot in the general vicinity to take a second coursing. After the bees had taken the second bait, the new direction was charted as well. The bee hunter could then follow the two lines to their point of intersection and there find the hive (311).
The third stage, once the tree was located, was marking the tree or staking the claim. If someone else hadn't beaten the hunter to the tree (and already staked the claim), he would mark it--announcing his intention to rob the hive. Systems of marking were in no way formalized: some carved their initials into the bark, while others cut notches or nailed items into the tree bark (311).
The fourth stage involved preparing enough vessels to carry the honey and comb. If a hunter were gathering for commercial purposes, he would locate several hives and mark the trees. Then, as William Monks relates in his History of Southern Missouri and Northern Arkansas, he would be ready to prepare carrying vessels:
. . . the morning following they would go out and kill nothing but large deer; caseskin them until they had a sufficient number of hides to contain the honey they expected to take from the trees, take the hides to camp, tie a knot in the forelegs of the hide, take dressed buckskin and a big awl, roll the hide of the neck in about three folds, run two rows of stitches, draw it tight, then go to their wagons with ridge poles and hooks already prepared, knot the hind legs of the skins, hang them over the hooks take their tub, a knife and spoon, proceed to the trees, stop their team a sufficient distance from a tree to prevent the bees from stinging the animals, cut the tree, take out the honey, place it in the tub, and when the tub was filled carry it to the wagon where the ides were prepared, empty their tubs into the deerskins, return again to another tree and continue cutting until the hides were all filled with honey . . . (quoted in Ingenthron 314)
The length of Monks' sentence itself reveals the detailed planning and preparation that the hunter had to make in order to successfully carry home his rewards.
The fifth stage, which Monks addresses above, was actually robbing the hive. Some hunters boasted that their skill was so refined that they could rob a hive and never get stung. Be that as it may, most hunters brought along a few items that helped protect them from bee sting--a bee hat with a gauze netting that hung down over the neck and throat and a smoker to smoke the bees out of the tree before the tree was chopped down. Once the bee hunter had gathered his tools and containers at the base of the tree, he usually built a small fire, using the bellow-like smoker to direct the smoke up into the hollow tree. If he were lucky, most of the bees would bellow out of the tree from knotholes or woodpecker holes higher in the tree and fly off to safety. The bees that remained in the tree were frequently asphyxiated by the smoke. He would then chop the tree down, split it open with his axe, and proceed to fill his containers with honey and comb.
The sixth stage involved processing the honey. Frequently the honey was put up, comb and all, in jars or hollowed gourds. Sometimes the honey was separated from the comb, especially by those families who intended to prepare the wax to sell commercially.
S.C. Turnbo recorded one old-timer's account of coming upon ideal bee trees. Nathan (N.W.) Tyler, according to Turnbo, said that after the Civil War, "We were all very hungry and to appease my appetite I shouldered my gun and lived in the forest part of the time. I soon killed 13 deer and found 18 bee trees" (Turnbo Manuscript).
On the subject of bee trees, Tyler continued:
"The richest bee tree I ever struck I found it on Crooked Creek in a large post oak tree. The honeycomb had a strange shape. There were 8 rows of comb 12 feet in length with narrow allies or spaces between the rows. These passageways seemed to have been formed by the bees to pass to and fro. There were several people present when I felled the tree. Among them were my mother, my brother Daniel and his wife, and my sister Barbary Tyler, and Matilda Tyler, wife of my brother Thomas Tyler. After our party ate all the honey we wanted we filled the following named vessels with rich honeycomb: one 3 gallon churn, one bushel washtub, two wooden water buckets, and one cedar pail; and we were compelled to leave a gallon or more at the tree for the want of another vessel to put it in" (Turnbo Manuscript).
Few hunters actually course and rob the wild honey bees today. Still, enthusiasts such as Dr. Fred Pfister, current editor of Ozarks Mountaineer, have set up backyard apiaries, where bee colonies can be kept and the honey harvested. Dr. Pfister's honey, frequently accompanied with originally penned verses, has been a source of enjoyment for many of his friends and acquaintances over the years.
Works Cited
Image of bee from http://www.arttoday.com. member page. July 1999.
Ingenthron, Elmo. The Land of Taney: a History of an Ozarks Commonwealth. Ozark Regional History Series. Book II. Point Lookout, MO: School of the Ozarks P, 1974.
Photographs of bee hunter, hive robbing, and gear from Godsey Collection, Lyons Memorial Library, College of the Ozarks
Turnbo, S.C. Turnbo Manuscripts. Springfield-Greene County Library. Shepard Room. <http://198.209.8.166/turnbo/v10st335.html> (5 July 1999)
