BOOK IX. XI. 1-5 



them enclosed for about three daySj leaving only 

 small breathing-holes, until they are accustomed to 

 live together. There are some people who prefer 2 

 to get rid of a king-bee that is old, but this is harmful ; 

 for the crowd of older bees, who form a kind of senate, 

 do not think fit to obey the juniors and, through 

 obstinately despising the orders of those who are 

 stronger than themselves, are visited with punish- 

 ment and death. The trouble, indeed, which usually 3 

 befalls a younger swarm, when the king of the old 

 bees whom we have left in power has failed through old 

 age and wild discord arises through lack of control (just 

 as happens in a family when its head dies), can easily 

 be met. For one leader is chosen from those hives 

 which have several chiefs and is transferred to those 

 which have no one to govern them, and set up as ruler. 

 In those quarters which are afflicted by some pesti- 

 lence the lack of bees can be remedied with less 

 trouble ; for when the disaster to the crowded hive 4 

 is recognized, you must examine any combs which it 

 contains. You must then next cut away, from the wax 

 which holds the seeds, that part in which the offspring 

 of the kingly race comes to life. It is easy to see this, 

 since almost at the very end of the wax there appears 

 as it were the nipple of a breast projecting some- 

 what and with a wider cavity than the rest of the 

 holes, in which the young bees of the common kind 

 are enclosed. Celsus indeed declares that there are 5 

 transverse cavities in the outermost combs which 

 contain the royal progeny. Hyginus, too, following 

 the authority of the Greeks, says that the ruler is not 

 formed, like the rest of the bees, from a small worm, 

 but that, on the circumference of the combs, straight 

 holes are to be found somewhat larger than those 



469 



