Some bee-keepers sprinkle their bees with flour, and can distinguish
them from others when they are at work out of doors. If the spring
be late, or if there be drought or blight, then grubs are all the
fewer in the hives. So much for the habits of bees.
41
Of wasps, there are two kinds. Of these kinds one is wild and
scarce, lives on the mountains, engenders grubs not underground but on
oak-trees, is larger, longer, and blacker than the other kind, is
invariably speckled and furnished with a sting, and is remarkably
courageous. The pain from its sting is more severe than that caused by
the others, for the instrument that causes the pain is larger, in
proportion to its own larger size. These wild live over into a
second year, and in winter time, when oaks have been in course of
felling, they may be seen coming out and flying away. They lie
concealed during the winter, and live in the interior of logs of wood.
Some of them are mother-wasps and some are workers, as with the
tamer kind; but it is by observation of the tame wasps that one may
learn the varied characteristics of the mothers and the workers. For
in the case of the tame wasps also there are two kinds; one consists
of leaders, who are called mothers, and the other of workers.
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