336 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



name, for making plasters; and for this reason it 

 fetches more than honey in the Sacra Via. The so- 

 called erithace^ — a different thing from honey or 

 propolis — bees use for sticking together the edges of 

 the combs, and so it has the power of attracting 

 them. Accordingly people smear the bough or 

 other object on which they want a swarm to settle, 



24 with a mixture of it and apiastrum. Honeycomb is 

 what bees make of wax; this has many compart- 

 ments in it, each one of which has six sides, as many 

 sides as nature has given feet to each bee. It is 

 said, too, that they do not extract from every flower 

 alike the materials which they bring to the making 

 of the four substances, propolis, erithace, honey- 

 comb and honey. Some plants serve for but a 

 single^ one of them; thus from the pomegranate 

 and asparagus bees extract food only, from the olive 

 tree wax, from the fig tree honey, which is, however, 



25 not good ; other plants serve for two, as from beans, 

 apiastrum, gourds, and cabbages are extracted wax 



breaks up tumours, reduces hard swellings, assuages the pain 

 of muscular rheumatism, and heals otherwise incurable ulcers." 

 By the use of the word protectum Varro hints at a derivation 

 of the word TrpoTroXic, viz., icpo and izokiq, " in front of the city." 



' Erithacen. Cf. iii, 16, 8. Both Pliny and Columella state 

 that it is the bees' food. 



^ Siviplex. One is inclined to believe, with Keil and against 

 Schneider, that the text is sound though the construction is 

 harsh and elliptical. Simplex must be taken closely with quae 

 adferunt. Of the things which they bring (i) there is a simple 

 substance as . . . (2) duplex ministerium praeberi, **a two- 

 fold supply is given by others, as for example ..." etc. 



