intelligence and art, for man has learned from them to manufacture,
to build, and to store his food: three occupations which are not the
same but are diverse in their nature, for it is one thing to provide
food, another to manufacture wax and honey, and still another to build
a house. Has not each cell in a honey comb six sides, or as many as a
bee has feet, the art of which arrangement appears in the teaching of
the geometricians that of all polygons the hexagon covers the largest
area within a circle.[202] Bees feed out of doors, but it is at home
that they manufacture that which is the sweetest of all things,
acceptable to gods and men alike: for honey comb is offered on the
altars and honey is served at the beginning of a dinner and again at
dessert.

"Bees have institutions like our own, consisting of royalty, government
and organized society. Cleanliness in all things is their aim: and so
they never alight in any place where there is filth or an evil odour,
or even where there is a strong savour of such an unguent as we may
consider agreeable. For the same reason if one who approaches them is
covered with perfume,[203] they do not lick him as flies do, but they
sting him, and by the same token no one ever sees bees crawling on
meat and blood and grease, as flies do. And so they only settle in
places of sweet savour. They do a minimum of damage because in their
harvesting they leave what they touch none the worse.[204] They are not
so cowardly as not to resist who ever attempts to disturb them, and
yet they are fully conscious of their own weakness. They are called
the Winged Servants of the Muses, because when they swarm they are
quickly brought together by the music of cymbals and the clapping of
hands: and as men assign Helicon and Olympus to be the haunts of the
Muses, so nature has attributed the flowery and uncultivated mountains
to the bees. They follow their king[205] wheresoever he goes, supporting
him when he is tired and even taking him upon their backs if he is
unable to fly, so do they wish to serve him.[206] As they are not idlers
themselves, so do they hate those who are, and thus driving out the
drones, they exclude them from the hive, because they are of no
service but merely consume honey: and it happens that a few bees,
buzzing with wrath, will drive out a number of drones.

"They smear every thing about the entrance to the hive with a gum which
is found between the cells which the Greeks call [