Virgil, by the way, had little more than a kid's knowledge of thehoney-bee. There is little fact and much fable inside his fourth Georgic.If he had ever kept bees himself, or even visited an apiary, it is hardto look at how he could have believed that the bee in its flight abroadcarried a gravel stone for ballast:--

"And as when empty barks on billows float, With Sandy ballast sailors trim the boat; So bees bear gravel stones, whose poising weight Steers through the whistling winds their steady flight;"