They first construct the dwellings of the commonalty, then those of the king-bee. If they have reason to expect an abundant[192] season, they add abodes also for the drones: these are cells of a smaller size, though the drones themselves are larger than the bees.
The drones have no sting, and would seem to be a kind of imperfect bee, formed the very last of all; a late and tardy offspring, and doomed, in a measure, to be the slaves of the genuine bees. The others exercise over them a rigorous authority, compel them to take the foremost rank in their labors, and if they show any sluggishness, punish them[193] without mercy. When the honey is beginning to come to maturity, the bees drive away the drones, and setting upon each in great numbers, put them all to death. It is only in the spring that the drones are ever to be seen. If you deprive a drone of its wings, and then replace it in the hive, it will pull off the wings of the other drones.
In the lower part of the hive they construct for their future sovereign a palatial abode, spacious and grand, separated from the rest, and surmounted by a sort of dome: if this prominence should happen to be flattened, all hopes of progeny are lost. All the cells are hexagonal. No part of this work is done at any stated time, as the bees seize every opportunity for the performance of their task when the days are fine; in one or two days, at most, they fill their cells with honey.
The honey is always best in those countries where it is to be found deposited in the calix of the most exquisite flowers, such, for instance, as the districts of Hymettus in Attica, and Hybla in Sicily, and after them the island of Calydna. At first, honey is thin, like water, after which it effervesces for some days, and purifies itself like must. On the twentieth day it begins to thicken, and soon after becomes covered with a thin membrane, which gradually increases through the scum which is thrown up by the heat. The honey of the very finest flavor, and the least tainted by the leaves of trees, is that gathered from the foliage of the oak and the linden, and from reeds.
In some countries we find the honey-comb remarkable for the goodness of the wax, as in Sicily and the country of the Peligni; in other places the honey itself is found in greater abundance, as in Crete, Cyprus, and Africa; and in others, again, the comb is remarkable for its size; in Germany a comb has been known to be as much as eight feet in length.