22 
pliny's natueal history. 
[Book XI. 
forth from its abode ; the only thing that it does is to gather 
around the body, and to emit a melancholy humming noise. 
Upon such occasions, the usual plan is to disperse the swarm 
and take away the body ; for otherwise they would continue 
listlessly gazing upon it, and so prolong their grief. Indeed, 
if due care is not taken to come to their aid, they will die of 
hunger. It is from their cheerfulness, in fact, and their 
bright and sleek appearance that we usually form an estimate 
as to their health. 
(19) There are certain maladies, also, which affect their 
productions ; when they do not fill their combs, the disease 
under which they are labouring is known by the name of 
claroSj^ and if they fail to rear their young, they are suffering 
from the effects of that known as Uapsigonia.^^ 
CHAP. 21. THIIfGS THAT AEE NOXIOUS TO BEES. 
Echo, or the noise made by the reverberation of the air, 
is also injurious to bees, as it dismays them by its redoubled 
sounds ; fogs, also, are noxious to them. Spiders, too, are espe- 
cially hostile to bees ; when they have gone so far as to build their 
webs within the hive, the death of the whole swarm is the result. 
The common and ignoble moth,*^^ too, that is to be seen fluttering 
about a burning candle, is deadly to them, and that in more 
ways than one. It devours the wax, and leaves its ordure 
behind it, from which the maggot known to us as the teredo 
is produced ; besides which, wherever it goes, it drops the 
down from off its wings, and thereby thickens the threads of 
the cobwebs. The teredo is also engendered in the wood of 
the hive, and then it proves especially destructive to the wax. 
Eees are the victims, also, of their own greediness, for when 
they glut themselves overmuch with the juices of the flowers, in 
the spring season more particularly, they are troubled with 
flux and looseness. Olive oil is fataF^ to not only bees, but 
all other insects as well, and more especially if they are placed 
The reading seems doubtful, and the meaning is probably unknown. 
" Injury of the young." 
"'^ There are two kinds of hive-moth — the Phaltena tinea mellanella of 
Linnaeus, and the Phaleena tortrix cereana. It deposits its larva in holes 
which it makes in the wax. 
In consequence of closing the stigmata, and so impeding their respi- 
ration. The same result, no doubt, is produced by the honey when smeared 
over their bodies. 
