The beautiful forest in which we were encamped abounded in bee trees; that is to say, trees in the decayed trunks of which wild
bees had established their hives. It is surprising in what countless swarms the bees have overspread the far west, within but a moderate number of years. The Indians consider them the harbinger of the white man, as the Buffalo is of the red man; and say that, in proportion as the bee advances, the Indian and Buffalo retire. We are always accustomed to associate the hum of the bee-hive with the farm house and flower garden, and to consider those industrious little animals as connected with the busy haunts of man, and I am told that the wild bee is seldom to be met with at any great distance from the frontier. They have been the heralds of civilization, steadfastly preceding it as it advanced from the Atlantic borders, and some of the ancient settlers of the west pretend to give the very year when the honey bee first crossed the Mississippi. The Indians with surprise found the mouldering trees of their forests suddenly teeming with ambrosial sweets, and nothing, I am told, can exceed the greedy relish with which they banquet for the first time upon this unbought luxury of the wilderness. At the end of the first paragraph the author MOST LIKELY uses the phrases ambrosial sweets and unbought luxury to refer to A) bees. B) honey. C) the success of civilization. D) the scent of flower gardens.
