Chapter XIX.

1. There are several kinds of bees, the best are small, round, and variegated: another kind is large, like the anthrene: a third kind is called phor; this is black, and has a broad abdomen: the drone is the fourth, and is the largest of all; it has no sting, and is incapable of work, for which reason people often wrap something round their hives, so that the bees can enter, but the drones, being larger, cannot.

2. There are two kinds of rulers among bees, as I observed before. In every hive there are several rulers, and not a single one, for the hive perishes if there are not rulers enough (not that they thus become anarchical, but, as they say, because they are required for breeding the bees); if there are too many rulers they perish, for thus they become distracted.

3. If the spring is late, and drought and rusts are about, the progeny is small. When the weather is dry, they make honey. When it is damp, their progeny multiplies; for which reason, the olives and the swarms of bees multiply at the same time. They begin by making comb, in which they place the progeny, which is deposited with their mouths, as those say who affirm that they collect it from external sources. Afterwards they gather the honey which is to be their food, during the summer and the autumn; that which is gathered in the autumn is the best.

4. Wax is made from flowers. They bring the material of wax from the droppings of trees, but the honey falls from the air, principally about the rising of the stars, and when the rainbow rests upon the earth. Generally no honey is produced before the rising of the Pleiades. We argue that wax is made, as I said, from flowers, but that the bees do not make honey, but simply collect that which falls; for those who keep bees find the cells filled with honey in the course of one or two days. In the autumn there are flowers enough, but the bees make no honey, if that which they have produced is taken away. But if one supply was taken away, and they were in want of food, they would make more if they procured it from flowers.

5. The honey becomes thick by ripening, for at first it is like water, and continues liquid for some days, wherefore it never becomes thick if it is taken away during that time. It requires twenty days to make it consistent; this is very plain from the taste of it, for it differs both in sweetness and solidity. The bee carries honey from every plant which has cup-shaped flowers, and from all those which contain a sweet principle, but does not injure the fruit; it takes up and carries away the sweet taste of plants with its tongue-like organ.

6. The honey-comb is pressed when the wild figs begin to appear; and they produce the best grubs when they can produce honey. The bees carry the wax and bee-bread upon their legs, but the honey is disgorged into the cells. After the progeny is deposited in the cells, they incubate like birds. In the wax cells the little worm is placed at the side; afterwards it rises of itself to be fed. It is united to the comb in such a manner as to be held by it. The progeny both of the bees and drones from which the little worms are produced, is white. As they grow they become bees and drones. The progeny of the king-bees is rather red, and about the consistency of thick honey. In bulk it is as large as the creature which is produced from it. The progeny of the king-bee is not a worm, but comes forth a perfect bee, as they say; and, when the progeny is produced in the comb, honey is found in that which is opposite.

7. After the grub is covered up, it has wings and feet; and when it has acquired wings, it bursts through the membrane, and flies away. It evacuates an excrementitious matter while it is a worm, but not afterwards, until it is perfected, as I observed before. If a person cuts off the head of the grub before its wings are acquired, the other bees devour it; if a person having cut off the wings of a drone lets it go, the bees will eat off the wings of the other drones.

8. The bee will live for six years, some have lived for seven, and if a swarm lasts nine or ten years, it is considered to have done well. In Pontus there are very white bees, which make honey twice every month. In Therniscyra, near the river Thermodon, are found bees which make cells in the earth, and in hives with a very small quantity of wax, but their honey is thick. The cells are smooth and homogeneous. They only do this in the winter, and not all the year round; for there is a great deal of ivy in the place, which flowers at this season of the year, and from this they carry away the honey. From the higher regions of Amisus a kind of white honey is procured, which the bees form upon the trees without wax. The same is also found in another place in Pontus. There are also bees which form triple cells in the earth; these form honey, but never have grubs. All such as these, however, are not cells, neither are they formed by every kind of bee.