Just to start the ball rolling:
 
Fable 1
(source - a textbook on "Myths of the Greeks and Rome"by H.A. Guebner, which
is no longer in my possession.)
 
In Greek mythology honey bees were the responsibility of the 9 Muses,
females who were the divine aspect of music, the arts and rational debate.
The Muses would meet and dance on the slopes of the divine mountain.  A
goat-herd named Comatas glimpsed them dancing and, overcome with awe,
sacrificed a kid goat to them.
When the owner of the goat herd discovered his loss he ordered that Comatas
be sealed into a chest to die.  The Muses took pity on his plight and sent
their servants the honey bees to carry honey to him through a chink in the
chest.
When the chest was eventually re-opened Comatas emerged in perfect health.
 
Fable 2
(source - The ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture - which also contains some
fascinating material on ancient beekeeping)
 
Democritus a Greek philosopher advised that bee swarms can be obtained by:
 
Killing an ox and confining in a one-room building, which has had all the
openings closed with clay.  On the 32nd day the building may be opened to
discover it full of bees "crowded in clusters on each other, and the horns
and the bones and the hair and nothing else of the bullock left".
 
 
Betty McAdam
HOG BAY APIARY
Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island
j.h. & e. mcadam<[log in to unmask]
http://kigateway.eastend.com.au/hogbay/hogbay1.htm