SWARMING AND MATING FLIGHT 
59 
The gifts of heav’n my following song pursues, 
Aerial honey and ambrosial dews . 
The ancients considered honey as the dew of 
heaven which fell on the flowers and was thence 
gathered by the bees. 
Together with the cottage beekeepers, Vergil be¬ 
lieved in the efficacy of the drumming method with 
swarms. Witness this advice: 
But when thou seest a swarming cloud arise, 
That sweeps aloft and darkens all the s\ies, 
The motions of their hasty -flight attend, 
And \now to floods or woods their airy march 
they bend . 
. . . Then mix with tinkling brass the cymbals 
droning sound — 
Straight to their ancient cells, recall'd from air, 
The reconciled deserters will repair . 
Furthermore, Vergil, like all others of his time, 
thought the one regal personage in the hive, a king— 
Him they extol, they worship him alone . 
They crowd his levees and support his throne. 
They raise him on their shoulders with a shout 
And when their sovereign s quarrel calls them out, 
His foes to mortal combat they defy. 
And thin\ it honor at his feet to die . 
Having no exact knowledge of the actual happen- 
