Nor forage far, but short excursions make.[669]
Bees were employed as the symbol of Epeses; they are common also on coins of Elyrus, Julis, and Præsus.[670]
One of the most remarkable facts in the history of Bees is that passage in the Bible[671] about the swarm of these insects and honey in the carcass of the lion slain by Samson. Some look upon it as a paradox, others as altogether incredible; but it admits of easy explanation. The lion had been dead some little time before the Bees had taken up their abode in the carcass, for it is expressly stated that “after a time,” Samson returned and saw the Bees and honey in the carcass, so that “if,” as Oedman has well observed, “any one here represents to himself a corrupt and putrid carcass, the occurrence ceases to have any true similitude, for it is well known in these countries, at certain seasons of the year, the heat will in twenty-four hours so completely dry up the moisture of dead animals, and that without their undergoing decomposition, that their bodies long remain, like mummies, unaltered, and entirely free from offensive odor.” To the foregoing quotation we may add that very probably the larvæ of flies, ants, and other insects,
which at the time when Bees swarm, are to be found in great numbers, would help to consume the carcass, and leave perhaps in a short time little else than a skeleton.[672]
An instance of Bees tenanting a dead body is found in the following passage from the writings of Herodotus: “Now the Amathusians, having cut off the head of Onesilus, because he had besieged them, took it to Amatheus, and suspended it over the gates; and when the head was suspended, and had become hollow, a swarm of Bees entered it, and filled it with honey-comb. When this happened, the Amathusians consulted the oracle respecting it, and an answer was given them, ‘that they should take down the head and bury it, and sacrifice annually to Onesilus, as to a hero; and if they did so, it would turn out better for them.’ The Amathusians did accordingly, and continued to do so until my time.”[673]
Another singular instance is mentioned by Napier in his Excursions on the shores of the Mediterranean: “Among this pretty collection of natural curiosities (in the cemetery of Algesiras), one in particular attracted our attention; this was the contents of a small uncovered coffin in which lay a child, the cavity of the chest exposed and tenanted by an industrious colony of Bees. The comb was rapidly progressing, and I suppose, according to the adage of the poet, they were adding sweets to the sweet, if not perfume to the violet.”[674]
Butler, in his Feminine Monarchie, narrates the following curious story: “Paulus Jovius affirmeth that in Muscovia, there are found in the woods & wildernesses great lakes of honey, which the Bees have forsaken, in the hollow truncks of marvelous huge trees. In so much that hony & waxe are the most certaine commodities of that countrie. Where, by that occasion, he setteth down the storie reported by Demetrius a Muscovite ambassador sent to Rome. A neighbor of mine (saith he) searching in the woods for hony slipt downe into a great hollow tree, and there sunk into a lake of hony vp to his brest: where when he had stucke faste two daies calling and crying out in vaine for helpe, because
no bodie in the meane while came nigh that solitarie place; at length when he was out of all hope of life, hee was strangely delivered by the means of a great beare: which coming thither about the same businesse that he did, and smelling the hony stirred with his striving, clambered vp to the top of the tree, & thence began to let himselfe downe backward into it. The man bethinking himself, and knowing the worst was but death, which in that place he was sure of, beclipt the beare fast with both his hands aboit the loines, and withall made an outcry as lowd as he could. The beare being thus sodainely affrighted, what with the handling, & what with the noise, made vp againe withal speed possible: the man held, & the beare pulled, vntil with main force he had drawne Dun out of the mire: & then being let go, away he trots more afeard than hurt, leaving the smeered swaine in a joyful feare.”[675]
By the Chinese writers, the composition of the characters for the Bee, Ant, and Mosquito, respectively, denote the awl insect, the righteous insect, and the lettered insect; referring thereby to the sting of the first, the orderly marching and subordination of the second, and the letter-like markings on the wings of the last.[676]
In May, 1653, the remains of Childeric, King of the Franks, who died A.D. 481, and was buried at Tournay, were discovered; and among the medals, coins, and books, which were found in his tomb, were also found above three hundred figures of, as Chiflet says, Bees, all of gold. Some of these figures were toads, crescents, lilies, spear-heads, and such like, but Chiflet, after much labor and research, was fully convinced they were Bees; and, more than that, determines them to be the source whence the Fleur de lis in the Arms of France were afterward derived. Montfaucon, however, did not hesitate to say they were nothing more than ornaments of the horse-furniture.[677]