149Come now, I will set out the natures that Jupiter himself gave to the bees, the reward for which they followed the tuneful sounds of the Curetes and their clashing bronze, and fed the king of heaven in the Dictaean cave. 153They alone have children in common, and hold the dwellings of their city jointly, and pass their lives under mighty laws, and they alone know a fatherland and fixed household gods, and, mindful of the winter to come, they labour in summer and store up their gains for the common good. 158For some watch over the food supply and, by a settled compact, are busied in the fields; 159some, within the walls of their homes, lay down the tears of the narcissus and sticky gum from bark as the first foundations for the combs, then hang the clinging wax: others bring up the grown young, the hope of the race, others pack the purest honey and swell the cells with clear nectar.
165There are those to whom guard duty at the gates has fallen by lot, and in turn they watch for rain and clouds in the sky, or take the loads of those coming in, or, forming a column, drive the drones, a lazy herd, from the hives. 169The work seethes, and the fragrant honey smells of thyme. 170And as when the Cyclopes hasten to forge thunderbolts from pliant lumps of metal, some take in and give out the winds with bull's-hide bellows, others dip the hissing bronze in the trough; 173Etna groans with the anvils laid upon it; 174they raise their arms among themselves with great force in rhythm and turn the iron with gripping tongs: just so, if small things may be compared with great, an inborn love of gain drives the Cecropian bees, each in its own office.
178The old have the care of the towns, and the fortifying of the combs and the moulding of the cunningly built houses. 180But the younger ones, weary, come home late at night, their legs laden with thyme; 181they feed far and wide on arbutus and grey-green willows and cassia and reddening saffron and the rich lime and the dusky hyacinth. 184All have one rest from work, all have one labour: in the morning they rush from the gates; 185nowhere is there delay; 185again, when evening has at last warned them to leave their pasture in the fields, then they seek their homes, then they refresh their bodies; 188a sound arises, and they hum around the edges and the doorways.
189Afterwards, when they have now settled in their chambers, there is silence for the night, and their own sleep takes hold of their weary limbs.