Colchians, lost their senses, and were seized with such violent vomiting and purging, that none of them were able to stand upon their legs: that those who ate but little, were like men very drunk, and those who ate much, like madmen, and some like dying persons. In this condition, this writer adds, great numbers lay upon the ground, as if there had been a defeat, and a general sorrow prevailed. The next day, they all recovered their senses, about the same hour they were seized; and, on the third and fourth days, they got up as if they had taken physic.[724]
Pliny accounts for this accident by saying there is found in that country a kind of honey, called from its effects, Thænomenon, that is, that those who eat it are seized with madness. He adds, that the common opinion is that this honey is gathered from the flowers of a plant called Rhododendros, which is very common in those parts. Tournefort thinks the modern Laurocerasus is the Rhododendros of Pliny, from the fact that the people of that country, at the present day, believe the honey that is gathered from its flowers will produce the effects described by Xenophon.[725]
The missionary Moffat in South Africa found some poisonous honey, which he unknowingly ate, but with no serious consequences. It was several days, however, before he got rid of a most unpleasant sensation in his head and throat. The plant from which the honey had been gathered was an Euphorbia.[726]
“In Podolia,” says the chronicler Hollingshed, “which is now subject to the King of Poland, their hives (of Bees) and combes are so abundant, that huge bores, overturning and falling into them, are drowned in the honie, before they can recover & find the meanes to come out.”[727]
Honey was offered up to the Sun by the ancient Peruvians.[728]
Dr. Sparrman has described a Hottentot dance, which he calls the Bee-dance. It is in imitation of a swarm of Bees; every performer as he jumps around making a buzzing noise.[729]
“To have a Bee in one’s bonnet” is a Scottish proverbial phrase about equivalent to the English, “To have a maggot in one’s head”—to be hair-brained. Kelly gives this with an additional word: “There’s a Bee in your bonnet-case.” In Scotland, too, it is said of a confused or stupefied man, that his “head is in the Bees.”[730] These proverbial expressions were also in vogue in England.[731]
The following beautiful epigram, on a Bee inclosed in amber, is from the pen of Martial: “The Bee is inclosed, and shines preserved, in a tear of the sisters of Phaëton, so that it seems enshrined in its own nectar. It has obtained a worthy reward for its great toils; we may suppose that the Bee itself would have desired such a death.
The Bee inclosed, and through the amber shown,
Seems buried in the juice that was her own.