Bee Lining Kit

Back from the past is Betterbee’s Bee Lining Box. Bee lining, or bee hunting, is the time honored technique used to locate feral colonies in the woods. Using the “beeline” or flightpath of foragers, bee hunters track bees returning to the hive to locate the hive.

To use the Bee Lining Box, the bee hunter captures a forager on a flower in the hinged end of the box. Honeycomb with anise-scented syrup is placed in the second compartment and the captured bee is allowed to enter. The bee discovers the rich nectar source, loads up and heads for the bee tree or hive. Other workers are recruited and return to the bee lining box. The direction that they fly is called the beeline, indicating the direction to the hive. Once this direction is established, the bee hunter takes the box (with bees) and move 100 to 300 yards along the, until the feral colony (or your neighbor’s) is discovered!

The Bee Lining Box is built for Betterbee by a local craftsman, patterned after the box described in George Edgell’s The Bee Hunter. Consisting of two chambers separated by a movable slide, the front chamber has a window and hinged cover.

The Bee Lining Box can be purchased as a stand-alone item with Anise Extract and a piece of plastic honeycomb, or you can purchase the box with Following the Wild Bees by Thomas Seeley and save 10%.