BOOK XXI. xLi. 70-xLni. 73 



XLI. But gardens and chaplet flowers are closely Beea. 

 associated with apiaries and bees, bee-culture being 

 a source of very great pi-ofit at slight expense, when 

 circumstances are favourable. Therefore, for the 

 sake of the bees you ought to plant thyme, apias- 

 trum, roses, violets, hUes, tree-medick, beans, cnick- 

 hng vetches, cunila, poppies, conyza, casia, meHlot, 

 melissophyllum, cerintha. The last has a white 

 leaf curving inwards, and is a cubit high, with a 

 hoUow head containing the honey juice. Of the 

 blossom of these plants bees are very fond, as they 

 are also of mustard, a strange thing to those familiar 

 with the well-known fact that the blossom of the olive 

 is not touched by them. For this reason it is better 

 to keep oHve trees away from them, while some 

 trees it would be wise to plant as near the hives as 

 possible, both to attract the swarms as they fly out, 

 and to prevent their straying to too great a distance. 



XLII. You must beware also of the cornel tree. 

 If bees taste its bk)ssom they die of diarrhoea. A 

 remedy is to administer crushed sorb apples in honey 

 to those aifected, or human urine or that of oxen, 

 or pomegranate seeds sprinkled with Aminean wine. 

 But what they Uke most is to have greenweed 

 pk'inted round their hives. 



XLIII. Wonderiul and worthy of record is what I ii<^"it^ 

 have discovered abuut their food. HostiHa is a 

 village on the bank of the Padus. Wlien bee-fodder 

 fails in the neighbom-hood tlie natives pHice the hives 

 on boats and carry them flve miles upstream by 

 night. At dawn the bees come out and feed, return- 

 ing everv day to tlie boats, which change thcir 

 position until, when they have sunk low in tiic water 

 under the mere weight, it is understood that the 



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