3. The other bees originate in the cells of the comb, but the rulers are produced in the lower part of the comb, six or seven of them separated, opposite to the rest of the progeny. The bees have a sting, which the drones have not: the kings and rulers have a sting which they do not make use of, and some persons suppose that they have none. 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.