BOOK IX. xiii. 13-XIV. 2 



to make honey than to produce offspring. And so 

 some people, whose knowledge of these matters is 

 defective, are delighted at the large production of 

 honey, not being aware of the destruction which is 

 threatening the bees ; for, exhausted by too much 

 labour, very many of them are perishing and, as their 

 numbers are not being increased by the addition of 

 young stock, the rest at last die off. And so, if such 14 

 a spring comes on that both the meadows and the 

 cornfields abound in flowers, it is most expedient 

 every third day to close the exits from the hives 

 (small openings having been left through which the 

 bees cannot pass), so that, called from the activity of 

 making honey, since they have no hope of being able 

 to fill up the waxen cells with liquid honey, they may 

 fill them with offspring. Such then in general are 

 the remedies for swarms suffering from some dis- 

 temper. 



XIV. Next comes the management of bees The man- 

 throughout the year according to the excellent ble^^°* "* 

 system set forth by the same Hyginus. From the 

 first equinox, which takes place about the twenty- 

 fourth of March in the eighth degree of the Ram, 

 until the rising of the Pleiads, there are reckoned to 

 be the forty-eight days of spring. During these days, 

 he says, the bees ought to receive attention for the 

 first time by opening the hives, so that all filth, which 

 has collected during the winter season, may be re- 

 moved, and, after the spiders, which rot the honey- 

 combs, have been got rid of, the hives may be 

 fumigated with smoke produced by burning ox-dung ; 

 for this smoke is particularly well suited to bees as if 

 some affinity existed between it and them. The little 

 worms also which are called moth-caterpillars and also 2 



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VOL. II. R 



