342 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



by thestateofthehoneycombs themselves, foryou may 

 know that it has come, if, on removing the lids of 

 the hives, the cells are seen to be covered with a 

 thin skin, being then full of honey; (one guesses 

 whether the hive still contains drones or has 

 already expelled them by the loud buzzing the bees 

 make inside the hive, and by their rushing in wild 

 33 excitement in and out of it). When the honey is re- 

 moved, some say that nine-tenths should be taken 

 and a tenth ' left, for if you take away the whole the 

 bees will desert the hive. Some people leave more 



remoris (Keil) si favorum foramina ohducta videntur memhranis 

 — cum sunt repleti melle^ and I have translated the parenthesis 

 last. As tofures for viris : Varro has already mentioned /wr as 

 a name given to drones (lii, i6, 19), and the killing of them 

 seems to be indicated by what follows. Alvos (here, of course, 

 nominative) is frequently used by Pliny and Columella for the 

 bees in the hive. For nem I have written ne an. The altera- 

 tion of congerminarit to contra exterminarit is violent, but Colu- 

 mella (ix, 15, 3) uses exterminare in this relation : Hos quidam 

 praecipiunt in totum exterminari oportere. In the phrase et si 

 favorum . . . cum remoreissi Keil obviously deletes the wrong 

 siy and in the last clause sunt instead of sint seems to be 

 necessary. To the reading proposed much support is given by 

 Columella (ix, 15, 4) : Ergo cum rixamfucorum etapium saepius 

 committi videris adapertas alvos inspicies ut, sive semipleni 

 favi sint differantur: sive iam liquore coinpleti, et superpositis 

 ceris tamquam operculis ohliti demetantur, and Palladius (June 

 vii) : Item cumfucos a sedihus suis, qui sunt apes maiores, grandi 

 intentione deturhant matura tnella testantur. 



^ Decumam. Columella (ix, 15, 8) says: "In summertime 

 a fifth, and on the approach of winter, a third of the honey 

 should be left; but on this point ancient authorities dis- 

 agree. 



