“In purchasing, the buyer should see whether they are well or sick. [20] The signs of health are their being thick in the swarm, sleek, and building uniformly smooth comb. When they are not so well, the signs are that they are hairy and shaggy, as if dusted over — unless it is the working season which is pressing them; for at this time, because of the work, they get tough and thin. [21] If they are to be transferred to another place, it should be done carefully, and the proper time should be observed for doing it, and a suitable place be provided to which to move them. As to the time, it should be in spring rather than in winter, as in winter it is difficult for them to form the habit of staying where they have been moved, and so they generally fly away. If you move them from a good situation to one where there is no suitable pasturage, they become runaways. And even if you move them from one hive into another at the same place, the operation should not be carried out carelessly, [22] but the hive into which the bees are going should be smeared with balm, which has a strong attraction for them, and combs full of honey should be placed inside not far from the entrance, for fear that, when they notice either a lack of food. . . . He says that when bees are sickly, because of their feeding in the early spring on the blossoms of the almond and the cornel, it is diarrhoea that affects them, and they are cured by drinking urine. [23] Propolis is the name given to a substance with which they build a protectum (‘gable’) over the entrance opening in front of the hive, especially in summer. This substance is used, and under the same name, by physicians in making poultices, and for this reason it brings even a higher price than honey on the Via Sacra. Erithace is the name given a substance with which they fasten together the ends of the comb (it is a different substance than either honey or propolis) and it is in it that the force of the attraction lies. So they smear with this substance, mixed with balm, the bough or other object on which they want the swarm to settle. [24] The comb is the structure which they fashion in a series of cells of wax, each separate cell having six sides, the same number as that of the feet given to each bee by nature. It is said that they do not gather wholly from the same sources the materials which they bring in for making the four substances, propolis, erithace, comb, and honey. Sometimes what they gather is of one kind, since from the pomegranate and the asparagus they gather only food, from the olive tree wax, from the fig honey, but of a poor quality. [25] Sometimes a double service is rendered, as both wax and food from the bean, the balm, the gourd, and the cabbage; and similarly a double service of food and honey from the apple and wild pear, and still another double service in combination, since they get wax and honey from the poppy. A threefold service, too, is rendered, as food, honey, and wax from the almond and the charlock. From other blossoms they gather in such a way that they take some materials for just one of the substances, other materials for more than one; [26] they also follow another principle of selection in their gathering (or rather the principle follows the bees); as in the case of honey, they make watery honey from one flower, for instance the sisera, thick honey from another, for instance from rosemary; and so from still another they make an insipid honey, as from the fig, good honey from snail-clover, and the best honey from thyme. [27] As drink is a component of food, and as this, in the case of bees, is clear water, they should have a place from which to drink, and this close by; it should flow past their hives, or run into a pool in such a way that it will not rise higher than •two or three fingers, and in this water there should lie tiles or small stones in such a way that they project a little from the water, so that the bees can settle on them and drink. In this matter great care should be taken to keep the water pure, as this is an extremely important point in making good honey. [28] As it is not every kind of weather that allows them to go far afield for feeding, food should be provided for them, so that they will not have to live on the honey alone at such times, or leave the hives when it is exhausted. So about ten pounds of ripe figs are boiled in six congii of water, and after they are boiled they are rolled into lumps and placed near the hives. Other apiarists have water sweetened with honey placed near the hives in vessels, and drop clean pieces of wool into it through which they can suck, for the double purpose of keeping them from surfeiting themselves with the drink and from falling into the water. A vessel is placed near each hive and is kept filled. Others pound raisins and figs together, soak them in boiled wine, and put pellets made of this mixture in a place where they can come out to feed even in winter.
[29] “The time when the bees are ready to swarm, which generally occurs when the well hatched new brood is over large and they wish to send out their young as it were a colony (just as the Sabines used to do frequently on account of the number of their children), you may know from two signs which usually precede it: first, that on preceding days, and especially in the evenings, numbers of them hang to one another in front of the entrance, [30] massed like a bunch of grapes; and secondly, that when they are getting ready to fly out or even have begun the flight, they make a loud humming sound exactly as soldiers do when they are breaking camp. Those which have gone out first fly around in sight, looking back for the others, which have not yet gathered, to swarm. When the keeper observes that they have acted so, he frightens them by throwing dust on them and by beating brass around them; [31] and the place to which he wishes to carry them, and which is not far away, is smeared with bee-bread and balm and other things by which they are attracted. When they have settled, a hive, smeared on the inside with the same enticing substances, is brought up and placed near by; and then by means of a light smoke blown around them they are induced to enter. When they have moved into the new colony, they remain so willingly that even if you place near by the hive from which they came, still they are content rather with their new home.
[32] “As I have given my views on the subject of feeding, I shall now speak of the thing on account of which all this care is exercised — the profit. The signal for removing the comb is given by the following occurrences . . . if the bees make a humming noise inside, if they flutter when going in and out, and if, when you remove the covers of the hives, the openings of the combs are seen to be covered with a membrane, the combs being filled with honey. [33] Some authorities hold that in taking off honey nine-tenths should be removed and one-tenth left; for if you take all, the bees will quit the hive. Others leave more than the amount stated. Just as in tilling, those who let the ground lie fallow reap more grain from interrupted harvests, so in the matter of hives if you do not take off honey every year, or not the same amount, you will by this method have bees which are busier and more profitable. [34] It is thought that the first season for removing the comb is at the time of the rising of the Pleiades, the second at the end of summer, before Arcturus is wholly above the horizon, and the third after the setting of the Pleiades. But in this case, if the hive is well filled no more than one-third of the honey should be removed, the remainder being left for the wintering; but if the hive is not well filled no honey should be taken out. When the amount removed is large, it should not all be taken at one time or openly, for fear the bees may lose heart. If some of the comb removed contains no honey or honey that is dirty, it should be cut off with a knife. [35] Care should be taken that the weaker bees be not imposed upon by the stronger, for in this case their output is lessened; and so the weaker are separated and placed under another king. Those which often fight one another should be sprinkled with honey-water. When this is done they not only stop fighting, but swarm over one another, licking the water; and even more so if they are sprinkled with mead, in which case the odour causes them to attach themselves more greedily, and they drink until they are stupefied. [36] If they leave the hive in smaller numbers and a part of the swarm remains idle, light smoke should be applied, and there should be placed near by some sweet-smelling herbs, especially balm and thyme. [37] The greatest possible care should be taken to prevent them from dying from heat or from cold. If at any time they are knocked down by a sudden rain while harvesting, or overtaken by a sudden chill befo
re they have foreseen that this would happen (though it is rarely that they are caught napping), and if, struck by the heavy rain-drops, they lie prostrate as if dead, they should be collected into a vessel and placed under cover in a warm spot; the next day, when the weather is at its best, they should be dusted with ashes made of fig wood, and heated a little more than warm. Then they should be shaken together gently in the vessel, without being touched with the hand, and placed in the sun. [38] Bees which have be warmed in this way recover and revive, just as happens when flies which have been killed by water are treated in the same way. This should be carried out near the hives, so that those which have been revived may return each to his own work and home.”
[17.1] Meantime Pavo returns to us and says: “If you wish to weigh anchor, the ballots have been cast and the casting of lots for the tribes is going on; and the herald has begun to announce who has been elected aedile by each tribe.” Appius arose hurriedly, so as to congratulate his candidate at once and then go on to his home. And Merula remarked: “I’ll give you the third act of the husbandry of the steading later, Axius.” As they were rising, and we were looking back, because we knew that our candidate was coming also, Axius remarked to me: “I am not sorry that Merula left at this point, [2] for the rest is pretty well known to me. There are two kinds of fish-ponds, the fresh and the salt. The one is open to common folk, and not unprofitable, where the Nymphs furnish the water for our domestic fish; the ponds of the nobility, however, filled with sea-water, for which only Neptune can furnish the fish as well as the water, appeal to the eye more than to the purse, and exhaust the pouch of the owner rather than fill it. For in the first place they are built at great cost, and in the second place they are stocked at great cost, and in the third place they are kept up at great cost. [3] Hirrus used to take in 12,000 sesterces from the buildings around his fish-ponds; but he spent all that income for the food which he gave his fish. No wonder; for I remember that he lent to Caesar on one occasion 2,000 lampreys by weight; and that on account of the great number of fish his villa sold for 4,000,000 sesterces. Our inland pond, which is for the common folk, is properly called ‘sweet,’ and the other ‘bitter’; for who of us is not content with one such pond? Who, on the other hand, who starts with one of the sea-water ponds doesn’t go on to a row of them? [4] For just as Pausias and the other painters of the same school have large boxes with compartments for keeping their pigments of different colours, so these people have ponds with compartments for keeping the varieties of fish separate, as if they were holy and more inviolate than those in Lydia about which, Varro, you used to say that while you were sacrificing, they would come up in schools, at the sound of a flute, to the edge of the shore and the altar, because no one dared catch them (the same time as that at which you saw the dancing islands of the Lydians); just so no cook dares ‘haul these fish over the coals.’ [5] Though our friend Quintus Hortensius had ponds built at great expense near Bauli, I was at his villa often enough to know that it was his custom always to send to Puteoli to buy fish for dinner. [6] And it was not enough for him not to feed from his ponds — nay, he must feed his fish with his own hands; and he actually took more pains to keep his mullets from getting hungry than I do to keep my mules at Rosea from getting hungry, and indeed he furnished them nourishment in the way of both food and drink much more generously than I do in caring for my donkeys. For I keep my very valuable asses with the help of a single stable-boy, a bit of barley, and water from the place; while Hortensius in the first place kept an army of fishermen to supply food, and they were continually heaping up minnows for the larger fish to eat. [7] Besides, he used to buy salted fish and throw them into ponds when the sea was disturbed and on account of bad weather this source of supply of the ponds failed to furnish food, and the live food — the fish which supplies the people with supper — could not be brought ashore with the net.” “You could more easily get Hortensius’s consent to take the carriage mules (mulas) from his travelling-carriage and keep them for your own,” said I, “than take a barbed mullet (mullum) from his pond.” [8] “And,” he continued, “he was no less disturbed over his sick fish than he was over his ailing slaves. And so he was less careful to see that a sick slave did not drink cold water than that his fish should have fresh water to drink. In fact he used to say that Marcus Lucullus suffered from carelessness in this respect, and he looked down on his ponds because they did not have suitable tidal-basins, and so, as the water became stagnant, his fish lived in unwholesome quarters; [9] while, on the other hand, after Lucius Lucullus had cut through a mountain near Naples and let a stream of sea-water into his ponds, so that they ebbed and flowed, he had no need to yield to Neptune himself in matter of fishing — for he seemed, because of the hot weather, to have led his beloved fish into cooler places, just as the Apulian shepherds are wont to do when they lead their flocks along the cattle-trails into the Sabine hills. But while he was building near Baiae he became so enthusiastic that he allowed the architect to spend money as if it were his own, provided he would run a tunnel from his ponds into the sea and throw up a mole, so that the tide might run into the pond and back to the sea twice a day from the beginning of the moon until the next new moon, and cool off the ponds.”
[10] So far we. Then a noise on the right, and our candidate, as aedile-elect, came into the villa wearing the broad stripe. We approach and congratulate him and escort him to the Capitoline. Thence, he to his home, we to ours, my dear Pinnius, after having had the conversation on the husbandry of the villa, the substance of which I have given you.
F. H. BELVOIR 1918 TRANSLATION
BOOK I
THE HUSBANDRY OF AGRICULTURE
Introduction: the literary tradition of country life
I
Had I leisure, Fundania, this book would be more worthy of you, but I write as best I may, conscious always of the necessity of haste: for, if, as the saying is, all life is but a bubble, the more fragile is that of an old man, and my eightieth year admonishes me to pack my fardel and prepare for the long journey.
You have bought a farm and wish to increase its fertility by good cultivation, and you ask me what I would do with it were it mine. Not only while I am still alive will I try to advise you in this, but I will make my counsel available to you after I am dead. For as it befel the Sibyl to have been of service to mankind not alone while she lived, but even to the uttermost generations of men after her demise (for we are wont after so many years still to have solemn recourse to her books for guidance in interpretation of strange portents), so may not I, while I still live, bequeath my counsel to my nearest and dearest.1 I will then write three books for you, to which you may have recourse for guidance in all things which must be done in the management of a farm.
And since, as men say, the gods aid those who propitiate them, I will begin my book by invoking divine approval, not like Homer and Ennius, from the Muses, nor indeed from the twelve great gods of the city whose golden images stand in the forum, six male and as many female, but from a solemn council of those twelve divinities who are the tutelaries of husbandmen.
* * * * *
First: I call upon Father Jupiter and Mother Earth, who fecundate all the processes of agriculture in the air and in the soil, and hence are called the great parents.
Second: I invoke the Sun and the Moon by whom the seasons for sowing and reaping are measured.
Third: I invoke Ceres and Bacchus because the fruits they mature are most necessary to life, and by their aid the land yields food and drink.
Fourth: I invoke Robigus and Flora by whose influence the blight is kept from crop and tree, and in due season they bear fruit (for which reason is the annual festival of the robigalia celebrated in honour of Robigus, and that of the floralia in honour of Flora).2
Next: I supplicate Minerva, who protects the olive; and Venus, goddess of the garden, wherefore is she worshipped at the rural wine festivals.
Delphi Complete Works of Varro Page 16