22 pliny's natukal HISTOET. [Book XI. 



forth from its abode ; the only thing that it does is to gather 

 around the body, and to emit a melancholy humming noise. 

 Upon such occasions, the usual plan is to disperse the swarm 

 and take away the body ; for otherwise they would continue 

 listlessly gazing upon it, and so prolong their grief. Indeed, 

 if due care is not taken to come to their aid, they will die of 

 hunger. It is from their cheerfulness, in fact, and their 

 bright and sleek appearance that we usually form an estimate 

 as to their health. 



(19) There are certain maladies, also, which affect their 

 productions ; when they do not fill their combs, the disease 

 under which they are labouring is known by the name of 

 c!aros, &s and if they fail to rear their young, they are suffering 

 from the effects of that known as Mapsigonia.™ 



CHAP. 21. THINGS THAT ARE NOXIOUS TO BEES. 



Echo, or the noise made by the reverberation of the air, 

 is also injurious to bees, as it dismays them by its redoubled 

 sounds ; fogs, also, are noxious to them. Spiders, too, are espe- 

 cially hostile to bees; when they have gone so far as to build their 

 webs within the hive, the death of the whole swarm is the result. 

 The common and ignoble moth, 70 too, that is to be seen fluttering 

 about a burning candle, is deadly to them, and that in more 

 ways than one. It devours the wax, and leaves its ordure 

 behind it, from which the maggot known to us as the " teredo " 

 is produced ; besides which, wherever it goes, it drops the 

 down from off its wings, and thereby thickens the threads of 

 the cobwebs. The teredo is also engendered in the wood of 

 the hive, and then it proves especially destructive to the wax. 

 Bees are the victims, also, of their own greediness, for when 

 they glut themselves overmuch with the juices of the flowers, in 

 the spring season more particularly, they are troubled with 

 flux and looseness. Olive oil is fatal 71 to not only bees, but 

 all other insects as well, and more especially if they are placed 



68 The reading seems doubtful, and the meaning is probably unknown. 



69 " Injury of the young." 



7 " There are two kinds of hive-moth — the Phalsena tinea mellanella of 

 Linnsus, and the Phaloena tortrix cereana. It deposits its larva in holes 

 which it makes in the wax. 



71 In consequence of closing the stigmata, and so impeding their respi- 

 ration. The same result, no doubt, is produced by the honey when smeared 

 over their bodies. 



