BOOK XI. XI. 27-.X11. 31 



contributes much to their warmth : it is certain 

 that the larger number of drones there has been, 

 the larger production of swarms also occurs. When 

 the honey has begun to ripen, the bees drive the 

 drones away, and falhng on them many to one kill 

 them. Moreover this class of bee is only seen in 

 spring. If a drone is stripped of its wings and after- 

 wards thrown back into the hive it itself strips 

 the wings off the others. XII. They build large King-bees' 

 and splendid separate palaces for those who are to be P'^'"'^^'' 

 their rulers, in the bottom of the hive ; these project 

 with a protuberance, and if this be squeezed out, 

 no offspring is born. All the cells are hexagonal, 

 each side being made by one of the bee's six feet. 

 None of these tasks are done at a fixed time, but they 

 snatch their duties on fine days. They fill their 

 cells A\ith honey on one or at most two days. 



Honey comes out of the air, and is chiefly formed They coiieci 

 at the rising of the stars, and especially when the f°omfofiage 

 Dogstar itself shines forth, and not at all before the andcangu 

 rising of the Pleiads, in the periods just before stomact^. 

 davm. Consequently at that season at early davm 

 the leaves of trees are found bedewed with honey, 

 and any persons who have been out under the 

 morning sky feel their clothes smeared with damp 

 and their hair stuck together, whether this is the 

 perspiration of the sky or a sort of sahva of the stars 

 or the moisture of the air purging itself. And 

 would it were pure and Hquid and homogeneous, 

 as it was when it first flowed down ! But as it is, 

 falHng from so great a height and acquiring a great 

 deal of dirt as it comes and becoming stained with 

 vapour of the earth that it encounters, and moreover 

 having been sipped from foliage and pastures and 



451 



