BOOK IX. xiii. 4-7 



about the time of the spring equinox, when the mild- 

 ness of the day invites us, bring them out into the 

 sunshine, after the third hour, and cover them with 

 fig-wood ashes. If this is done, he declares 

 that within two hours, brought to life by the 

 quickening breath of the heat, they begin to 

 breathe again and crawl into a vessel provided 

 for this purpose, if it is placed in their way. We 5 

 rather, that they may not perish, are of opinion 

 that the diet, which we will forthwith describe, should 

 be put before the swarms when they are sick. For 

 they ought to be given either seeds of pomegranate, 

 bruised and sprinkled with Aminean * wine, or 

 raisins with an equal quantity of Syrian sumach ^ 

 and soaked in rough wine ; or, if these are 

 without effect taken separately, all the same in- 

 gredients should be pounded in equal quantities into 

 a single mass and boiled in an earthenware vessel with 

 Aminean wine and then allowed to cool right away 

 and placed before the bees in wooden troughs. Some 6 

 people boil rosemary in honey-water and, when it 

 has cooled, pour it into troughs and give it to the 

 bees to sip. Others put the urine either of oxen or 

 of human beings near the hives, as Hyginus declares. 

 Moreover also, that disease is particularly remarkable 7 

 which makes them hideous and shrunken and consumes 

 them, when some often carry out from their abodes 

 the bodies of those which have died, while others 

 remain listless within their dwellings in sad silence, 

 as though in time of public mourning. When this 



" From a district of Picenum (Vergil, Oeorg. II. 97). 



* Ros or, more correctly, rJms Syriacvs is said by Pliny, 

 N.H. XIII. § 55, to be used as a drug, which shows that 

 Syriacus is the right reading here. 



475 



