24. It is a sign that the swarm is strong when there is much noise and movement, as they leave and return to the hive, for they are then busy with the grubs. They are most hungry when they begin to work after winter. They are more idle if the person who takes the honey leaves much behind, but it is necessary that a quantity should be left proportionable to the strength of the swarm, for they work less actively if too little is left; they become more idle if the hive is large, for they despair of their labour. The hive is deprived of a measure or a measure and a half of honey; if it is strong, two or two measures and a half. Some few will afford three measures. 25. Sheep and wasps, as it was said above, are hostile to bees. The bee fanciers, therefore, catch the wasps in pans, in which they place pieces of flesh; when many have fallen in, they put on a lid and put them in the fire. It is good for the bees to have a few drones among them, for it makes them more industrious. Bees discern the approach of cold weather and of rain; this is plain, for they will not leave the hive, but even if the day is fine are occupied in the hive. By this the bee keepers know that they expect severe weather. 26. When they are suspended upon each other in the hive, it is a sign that the swarm is about to leave; and when the bee keepers see this, they sprinkle them with sweet wine. They usually plant about the hive the achras, beans, poa medica, syria, ochrus, myrtle, poppy, herypllus, almond. Some bee keepers recognize their own bees in the fields by sprinkling them with flour. When the spring is late or dry, and when rust is about, the bees are less diligent about their young. This, then, is the nature of bees. CHAPTER XXVIII. 1. There are two kinds of wasps, of which the wild sort are rare; they are found in mountains, and do not build their nest in the ground, but on oak trees; in form they are larger, longer, and darker than the other sort; they are variegated, all of them have stings, and are strong, and their sting is more painful than that of the other sorts, for their sting is larger in proportion to their size. These live for two years, and in winter are observed to fly out of trees, when they are cut down; during winter they live in holes. Their place of concealment is in trees; some of them are mother wasps, and some workers, as in those which are more domestic; the nature of the workers and the mother wasps will be explained when we come to speak of the more domestic kind.