Those of you who learn Latin may some day have to translate some books called the _Georgics_. They were written by a clever man called Virgil, and although schoolboys do not always like them, yet they are most interesting, especially the Fourth Book, which tells us a great deal about bees. Virgil lived in a town called Parthenope, which we now know as Naples. He was a great bee-keeper, and was never tired of watching his bees at their work, and moreover he left very accurate accounts of his observations. Hives in those days were dome-shaped, and made from pieces of bark stitched together, or sometimes of osiers or plaited willows. We can imagine the learned Virgil walking in his garden, surrounded by sweet-smelling flowers and herbs, and by his quaint bee-hives. Below, down the mountain side, lay “sweet Parthenope,” as he called it, with its orange and lemon groves. Beyond the town lay the most beautiful bay in the world, the Bay of Naples, whose water, as blue as turquoise, shimmered in the summer sun. Over all stood the crater of mighty Vesuvius, from the cone of which a thin wisp of smoke hung lazily in the atmosphere. In this way Virgil spent many happy days, and in the book I have mentioned we may read of his doings, and of his bees. Most of his ideas about bees were false, but some of the rules which he laid down for bee-keeping hold good even at the present time. Up to the time of Virgil, and even later, the duties of the workers in the hive were not properly understood. It was not known even that the largest bee was really the mother of them all, and that the workers looked after and tended the eggs, which later on would develop into young bees. In the days of Virgil it was supposed that bees were born in flowers, or that if an ox was killed and left to decay, a swarm of bees would be formed in its body and could then be put into a hive. In the Fourth Georgic very careful instructions are given by Virgil as to how to prepare an ox for this purpose. Many years ago this was translated into our language by a bee-keeper, and the wording is so quaint that I think you will be interested to read the following extract from the curious directions. We are told that we must find “a two-year-old bull calf, whose crooked horns be just beginning to bud. The beaste, his nose-holes and breathing are stopped, in spite of his much kicking! After he hath been thumped to death, he is left in the place, and under his sides are put bits of boughs and thyme and fresh-plucked rosemarie. In time the warm humor beginneth to ferment inside the soft bones of the carcase, and wonderful to tell there appear creatures, footless at first, but which soon getting unto themselves wings, mingle together and buzz about, joying more and more in their airy life. At last they burst forth, thick as raindroppes from a summer cloude....”