268 THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS. [B. IX. 



weather and of rain ; this is plain, for they will not leave 

 the hive, but even if the day is fine are occupied in the hive. 

 By this the bee keepers know that they expect severe 

 weather. 



26. When they are suspended upon each other in the hive, 

 it is a sign that the swarm is about to leave ; and when the bee 

 keepers see this, they sprinkle them with sweet wine. They 

 usually plant about the hive the achras, beans, poa medica, 

 syria, ochrus, myrtle, poppy, herypllus, almond. Some 

 bee keepers recognize their own bees in the fields by sprink- 

 ling them with flour. "When the spring is late or dry, and 

 when rust is about, the bees are less diligent about their 

 young. This, then, is the nature of bees, 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



1 . THERE are two kinds of wasps, of which the wild sort are 

 rare ; they are found in mountains, and do not build their 

 nest in the ground, but on oak trees ; in form they are larger, 

 longer, and darker than the other sort ; they are variegated, 

 all of them have stings, and are strong, and their sting is 

 more painful than that of the other sorts, for their sting is 

 larger in proportion to their size. These live for two 

 years, and in winter are observed to fly out of trees, when 

 they are cut down ; during winter they live in holes. Their 

 place of concealment is in trees ; some of them are mother 

 wasps, and some workers, as in those which are more do- 

 mestic; the nature of the workers and the mother wasps 

 will be explained when we come to speak of the more 

 domestic kind. 



2. For there are two kinds of the domestic wasps, 

 the rulers, which they call mother wasps, and the 

 workers; the rulers are larger and more gentle, and the 

 workers do not survive the year, but all of them die, on the 

 arrival of winter. This is plain, for at the beginning of 

 winter the workers become stupid, and about the solstice 

 are seen no more ; but the rulers, which are called mother 

 wasps, are seen during the whole of the winter, and bury 

 themselves in the earth; for in ploughing and digging 

 during the winter, the mother wasps have been frequently 

 observed, but no one has ever seen a worker. 



3. The following is the manner of their reproduction : 





