Chap. 23.] 
METHODS OP EENEWING THE SWAllM. 
23 
in the sun, after the head has been immersed in it. Some- 
times, too, they themselves are the cause of their own de- 
struction ; as, for instance, when they see preparations being 
made for taking their honey, and immediately fall to de- 
vouring it with the greatest avidity. In other respects they are 
remarkable for their abstemiousness, and they will expel 
those that are inclined to be prodigal and voracious, no less than 
those that are sluggish and idle. Their own honey even may 
be productive of injury to them ; for if they are smeared with 
it on the fore-part of the body, it is fatal to them. Such are 
the enemies, so numerous are the accidents — and how small a 
portion of them have I here enumerated ! — to which a crea- 
ture that proves so bountiful to us is exposed. In the appro- 
priate place"^^ we will treat of the proper remedies ; for the 
present the nature of them is our subject. 
CHAP. 22. (20.) — HOW TO KEEP BEES TO THE HIVE. 
The clapping of the hands and the tinkling of brass afford 
bees great delight, and it is by these means that they are 
brought together ; a strong proof, in fact, that they are pos- 
sessed of the sense of hearing. When their work is com- 
pleted, their offspring brought forth, and all their duties ful- 
filled, they still have certain formal exercises to perform, ranging 
abroad throughout the country, and soaring aloft in the air, 
wheeling round and round as they fly, and then, when the 
hour for taking their food has come, returning home. The 
extreme period of their life, supposing that they escape acci- 
dent and the attacks of their enemies, is only seven years ; 
a hive, it is said, never lasts more than ten.'^^ There are some 
persons, who think that, when dead, if they are preserved 
in the house throughout the winter, and then exposed to the 
warmth of the spring sun, and kept hot all day in the ashes 
of fig-tree wood, they will come to life again. 
CHAP. 23. METHODS OF KENEWII^G THE SWAEM. 
These persons say also, that if the swarm is entirely lost, it 
may be replaced by the aid of the belly"^^ of an ox newly killed, 
'2 B. xxi. c. 42. 
'^^^ Cuvier says that a hive has been known to last more than thirty years : 
but it is doubtful if bees ever live so long as ten, or, except the queen, 
Httle more than one. 
^ "^^ Though Virgil tells the same story, in B. iv. of the Georgics, in rela- 
tion to the shepherd Aristaeus, all this is entirely fabulous. 
