340 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



outside the hive where the bees, though it be winter, 



29 can still go for food. When bees are about to swarm, 

 which is generally when a good number of young 

 ones have been born to them without mishap, and 

 the hive means to send forth its children to form as 

 it were a colony, just as the Sabines in old times 

 often had to do owing to the large numbers of their 

 children — you can tell when this is going to happen 

 by means of two signs which usually precede it. 

 (i) Some days before, especially in the evening, 

 bunches of bees hanging together like grapes are to 



30 be seen before the entrance of the hive. (2) When 

 they are just on the point of flying away or have 

 actually begun to do so they make a loud humming 

 like the sound made by soldiers when moving camp. 

 Those which first leave the hive fly about in sight, 

 looking back repeatedly at the others who have not 

 yet swarmed until they too come. When the bee- 

 keeper sees what has happened, he terrifies them 



31 by throwing dust ' upon them, and by clashing brass 



{or foras) of the passage quoted above from Pliny might be 

 read : " Whither — to the entrances, that is — they can at least 

 go for food even though it be winter." Varro then would be 

 in complete agreement with Columella and Pliny. The precise 

 definition of quo by a parenthetic ad fores is quite in Varro's 

 manner. 



^ laciundo pulvere. In Vergil (Georg., iv, 67-87) it is in order 

 to part the armies of two rival kings that dust is thrown, when : 



Hi motus animorum atque haec certamina tanta 

 Pulveris exigui iactu compressa quiescunt. 



Vergil's compressa corresponds to Varro's perierritae, but how 

 the poet turns all to favour and to prettiness ! 



