Ill] OF BEES AND APIARIES 335 



If you move them from a good situation to one 

 where there is no suitable food, they desert. Again 

 if you would transfer them from one hive to another 

 in the same place, certain precautions must be 

 taken ; the hive to which you mean to transfer them 

 should be rubbed with apiastrum as this attracts 

 them strongly, and you must place inside, not far 

 from the entrance, some combs with honey in them, 

 lest when they notice that there is nothing to eat^ 



He says that when they are upset by the food they 

 find in early spring, which consists of almond ^ and 

 cornel flowers, they suffer from diarrhoea, and should 

 be cured by giving them urine to drink. 



What is called propolis is a substance used by 

 bees for making (particularly in summer) a sort of 

 gable in front of the hive, over the hole where they 

 enter. Doctors ' also used propolis^ under the same 



' f'-^iam. Much must have here dropped out of the text. 

 Columella, Pliny, Palladius and the Geoponica give 

 not the slightest clue anywhere to the missing words. Keil 

 thinks that the missing subject of dtcit is Menecrates. 



' Exflorihtis nucis Graecae. Most of the ancient authorities 

 speak of this disease— fatal to bees — as caused by the tithy- 

 inalus (sea lettuce) and the seed of the elm {satnera ulmt)^ and 

 add that in those parts of Italy where these abound bees do 

 not flourish (cf. Columella, ix, 13, 2). Columella {loc. cit.) 

 mentions many remedies, as pounded pomegranate seed, rose- 

 mary, etc., and amongst them that given by Varro, quidam 

 huhulam vel hominis urinam, sicut Hyginus affirmat, alvis 

 ipponunt. 



' Medici. Pliny (xxii, 24, beginning) describes the uses of 

 propolis in medicine. " it draws out stings and foreign bodies, 



