All of them labour together, and all rest at the same time. In the morning they rush out of their gates without delay: and when the evening admonishes them to return at length from feeding in the fields, then they seek their habitations, and then they take care of their bodies. They make a murmuring noise, and hum out the sides and entrance of the hives. Afterwards, when they are laid down on their beds, they are silent all night, and a sweet sleep possesses their wearied limbs.
But when rain impends, they do not depart far from their hives, nor do they trust the sky, when east winds approach; but drink the water in safety near the walls of their city, and try short excursions; and take up little stones, as boats that totter on the tossing wave, take ballast: with these they poise themselves through the empty clouds.
But of all the properties of Bees this most of all will cause your wonder, that they do not copulate, or enervate their bodies by lust, or labour to bring forth their young. But they themselves gather their young from leaves and sweet herbs. They themselves also produce their king, and their small citizens: and repair their palaces and waxen realms. Often also, whilst they wander over the hard rocks, have they battered their wings, and voluntarily yielded up their lives under their bushes: so great is their love of flowers: such their glory in making honey.
Therefore, though their age has but a narrow bound, for they do not live above seven years, yet does the stock remain immortal, and the fortune of their family sublifts for many years, and they can number grandfathers of grandfathers. Besides neither Egypt, nor great Lydia, nor the people of the Parthians, nor the Median Hydaspes are so obsequious to their King. Whilst the King is safe, they remain united; but when he is dead, they dissolve their society, pull down the fabric of their honey, and tear in pieces the structure of their combs. He is the guard of their works : him they admire, and surrond with frequent shoutings, and crowd about him; and often carry him on their shoulders, and for his sake expose their bodies in war, and seek a glorious death by wounds.
Some being led by these appearances, and following these examples, have said that the Bees are endowed with a part of the divine mind, and with ethereal influences. For their opinion is that the Deity passes through the whole earth, the extent of the sea, and the height of the heaven. That hence the flocks, the herds, men, and all sorts of wild beasts, may all creatures, at their birth draw in their lives. That all of them, when dissolved, are hither returned: that there is no place for death, that they fly alive among the stars, and rise up to the high heaven.
If at any time you would open their august mansion, and the honey preserved in their treasures, first gargle your mouth with water and spit it out, and drive in persecuting smoke with your hand. Twice do they compress the plenteous honey; there are two seasons of taking it, one as soon as the Pleiad Taygete has shewn her beauteous face to the earth, and has spurned the despised waters of the ocean: or when the same star, flying from the constellations of the warty fish, descends mournfully into the waters of winter. They are wrathful above measure, and if they are offended they breathe venom into their stings, and leave their hidden darts fixt to the veins, and part with their lives in the wounds that they inflict.
But if you are afraid of a hard winter, and would provide for futurity, and take pity on their broken strength, and ruined affairs, yet who would hesitate to fumigate them with thyme, and cut away the empty wax? For often the sculking lizard has eaten the combs, and the chambers are full of beetles that avoid the light, the drone also that sits without labouring at repast belonging to another, or the fierce hornet has engaged them with unequal arms, or the dreadful race of moths, or the spider hated by Minerva hangs her loose nets at their doors. The more they are exhausted, the more pains will they take to repair the ruins of their falling family, and will fill up their cells, and form the combs of flowers.
