BOOK IX. VII. 4-6 



and that, if by chance it does find its way in, it may 

 not remain there but flow out through the entrance. 

 Also, on account of the rain, the hives should be 

 protected above with colonnades, or, failing these, 

 they should be overshadowed by green foliage 

 daubed over with Carthaginian clay, forming a 

 covering which keeps off both the cold and rain and 

 also the heat. However the heat of summer is not 

 so harmful to this kind of creature as the cold of 

 winter," and so there should always be a building 

 behind the apiary to intercept the violence of the 

 north wind and provide warmth for the hives. 

 Likewise the bees' dwelling-places, although they 5 

 are protected by buildings, ought to be so arranged 

 as to face the south-east, in order that the bees 

 may enjoy the sun when they go out in the 

 morning and may be more wide-awake ; for cold 

 begets sloth. For the same reason, too, the holes 

 through which they go in and out ought to be very 

 narrow, so as to admit as little cold as possible ; 

 indeed it is enough that they should be so bored 

 that they cannot admit the bulk of more than one bee 

 at a time. Thus neither the poisonous gecko nor the 

 foul race of beetles and butterflies and the cock- 

 roaches that shun the day-light, as Maro says,^ will not 

 lay waste the honey-combs by having too wide an 

 entrance to pass through. It is also a most useful 6 

 device to have made in proportion to the number of 

 bees in the hive, two or three entrances in its outer 

 covering at a distance from one another to defeat 

 the craftiness of the lizard, which standing like a 

 door-keeper at the entry, with open mouth, brings 

 destruction upon the bees as they come forth, and 

 fewer of them perish when they are at liberty to 



449 



VOL. II. Q 



