On Sun, 10 Aug 1997 23:08:21 +0900 j h & e mcadam <[log in to unmask]>
writes:
>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".
 
The connection between bulls and bees is a lot older than Democritus --
by about 3000 years.  The iconography of the (pre-Greek) neolithic and
chalcolithic cultures of southeastern Europe is full of bull-gods and
bee-goddesses.  (Source:  Marija Gimbutas, "Goddesses and Gods of Old
Europe".)
 
The idea that bees are generated from dead animals seems to have been
widespread in the ancient eastern-Mediterranean area (remember Samson and
the lion in the Bible?)  I wonder why.  Some wasps, of course
(yellow-jackets, for example) are carnivorous and will flock to meat if
given the opportunity, but honey-bees --- ??
 
Walter Weller
Post Office Box 270
Wakefield, Louisiana  70784
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