A similar incident is mentioned in the life of Plato: "Whilst Plato was yet an infant carried in the arms of his mother Perictione, Aristo his father went to Hymettus (a mountain in Attica eminent for abundance of Bees and Honey) to sacrifice to the Muses or Nymphs, taking his Wife and Child along with him; as they were busied in the Divine Rites, she laid the Child in a Thicket of Myrtles hard by; to whom, as he slept (in cunis dormienti) came a Swarm of Bees, Artists of Hymettian Honey, flying and buzzing about him, and (as it is reported) made a Honeycomb in his mouth. This was taken for a presage of the singular sweetness of his discourse; his future Eloquence foreseen in his infancy."
From Butler's Lives of the Saints we have the following: "The birth of St. Ambrose happened about the year 340 B.C., and whilst the child lay asleep in one of the courts of his father's palace, a swarm of Bees flew about his cradle, and some of them even crept in and out at his mouth, which was open; and at last mounted up into the air so high, that they quite vanished out of sight. This," concludes the Reverend Alban, "was esteemed a presage of future greatness and eloquence."
Another instance is mentioned in the Feminine Monarchie, printed at Oxford in 1634, p. 22: "When Ludovicus Vives was sent by Cardinal Wolsey to Oxford, there to be a public professor of Rhetoric, being placed in the College of Bees, he was welcomed thither by a swarm of Bees; which sweet creatures, to signify the incomparable sweetness of his eloquence, settled themselves over his head, under the leads of his study, where they have continued to this day. How sweetly did all things then accord, when in this neat Museion newly consecrated to the Muses, the Muses' sweetest favorite was thus honored by the Muses' birds."
Moufet, in his Theater of Insects, and Topsel, in almost the same words in his History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents, gives the following list of remarkable omens drawn from Bees: "Whereas the most high God did create all other creatures for our use; so especially the Bees, not only that as mistresses they might hold forth to us a pattern of politic and economic virtues, and inform our understanding; but that they might be able as extraordinary foretellers, to foreshow the success and event of things to come; for in the years 90, 98, 113, 208, before the birth of Christ, when as mighty huge swarms of Bees did settle in the chief marketplace, and in the beast-market upon private citizens' houses, and on the temple of Mars, there were at that time stratagems of enemies against Rome, wherewith the whole state was like to be surprised and destroyed. In the reign of Severus, the Bees made combs in his military ensigns, and especially in the camp of Niger. Divers wars upon this ensued between both the parties of Severus and Niger, and battles of doubtful event, while at length the Severian faction prevailed. The statues also of Antonius Pius placed here and there all over Hetruria, were all covered with swarms of Bees; and after that settled in the camp of Cassius; what great commotions after followed Julius Capitolinus relates in his history. At what time also, through the treachery of the Germans in Germany, there was a mighty slaughter and overthrow of the Romans. P. Fabius, and Q. Aelius being consuls in the camp of Drusus in the tent of Hostilius Rutilus, a swarm of Bees is reported to have sat so thick, that they covered the rope and the spear that held up the tent. M. Lepidus, and Munat. Plancus being consuls, as also in the consulship of L. Paulus, and C. Metellus, swarms of Bees flying to Rome (as the augurs very well conjectured) did foretell the near approach of the enemy. Pompey likewise making war against Caesar, when he had called his allies together, he set his army in order as he went out of Dyrrachium, Bees met him and sat so thick upon his ensigns that they could not be seen what they were. Philistus and Aelian relate, that while Dionysius the tyrant did in vain spur his horse that stuck in the mire, and there at length left him, the horse quitting himself by his own strength, did follow after his master the same way he went with a swarm of Bees sticking on his mane, intimating by that prodigy that tyrannical government which Dionysius affected over the Galeotae. In the Helvetian History we read, that in the year 1385, when Leopoldus of Austria began to march towards Sempachum with his army, a swarm of Bees flew to the town and there sat upon the tiles; whereby the common people rightly foretold that some foreign force was marching towards them. So Virgil, in 7 Aeneid:
The Bees flew buzzing through the liquid air: And lighted upon the top o' th' laurel tree; When the Soothsayers saw this sight full rare, They did foretell th' approach of th' enemy.
That which Herodotus, Pausanias, Dio Cassius, Plutarch, Julius Caesar, Julius Capitolinus, and other historians with greater observation than reason have confirmed. Saon Acrephniensis, when he could by no means find the oracle Trophonius; Pausanias in his Boeticks saith he was led thither by a swarm of Bees. Moreover, Plutarch, Pausanias, Aelian, Alex. Alexandrinus, Theocritus and Textor are authors that Jupiter Melitacus, Hiero of Syracuse, Plato, Pindar, Apius Coriatus, Xenophon, and last of all Ambrose, when their nurses were absent, had honey dropped into their mouths by Bees, and so were preserved."
In East Norfolk, England, if Bees swarm on rotten wood, it is considered portentous of a death in the family. This superstition is as old at least as the time of Gay, for, among the signs that foreshadowed the death of Blonzelind, it is mentioned:
Swarmed on a rotten stick the Bees I spy'd Which erst I saw when Goody Dobson dy'd.
In Ireland, the mere swarming of Bees is looked upon as prognosticating a death in the family of the owner.
In parts of England it is believed, that if a swarm of Bees come to a house, and are not claimed by their owner, there will be a death in the family that hives them.
It is a very ancient superstition that Bees, by their acute sense of smell, quickly detect an unchaste woman, and strive to make her infamy known by stinging her immediately. In a pastoral of Theocritus, the shepherd in a pleasant mood tells Venus to go away to Anchises to be well stung by Bees for her lewd behavior.
Now go thy way to Ida mount Go to Anchises now, Where mighty oaks, where banks along Of square Cyperus grow, Where hives and hollow trunks of trees, With honey sweet abound, Where all the place with humming noise Of busy Bees resound.
Incontinence in men, as well as unchastity in women, was thought to be punished by these little insects. Thus in the lines of Pindarus:
Thou painful Bee, thou pretty creature, Who honey-combs six angled, as the be, With feet doest frame, false Phoecus and impure, With sting has prickt for his lewd villany.
Pliny says: "Certain it is, that if a menstruous woman do no more but touch a Bee-hive, all the Bees will be gone and never more come to it again."
In Western Pennsylvania, it is believed that Bees will invariably sting red-haired persons as soon as they approach the hives.
It is a common opinion that Bees in rough and boisterous weather, and particularly in a violent storm, carry a stone in their legs, in order to preserve themselves by its weight against the power of the wind. Its antiquity is also great, for in the writings of Plutarch we find an instance of this remarkable wisdom. "The Bees of Candi," says this philosopher, "being about to double a point or cape lying into the sea, which is much exposed to the winds, they ballast themselves with small grit or petty stones, for to be able to endure the weather, and not be carried away against their wills with the winds through their lightness otherwise."
Virgil, too, about a century earlier, mentions this curious notion in the following lines:
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.
Swammerdam, who has noticed this belief of the ancients, makes the following remarks: "But this, as Clutius justly observes, has not been hitherto remarked by any Bee-keeper, nor indeed have I myself ever seen it. Yet I should think that there may be some truth in this matter, and probably a certain observation, which I shall presently mention, has given rise to the story. There is a species of wild Bees not unlike the smallest kind of the Humble-Bee, which, as they are accustomed to build their nests near stone walls, and construct their habitations of stone and clay, sometimes carry such large stones that it is scarcely credible by what means so tender insects can sustain so great a load, and that even flying while they are obliged also to support their own body. Their nest by this means is often so heavy as to weigh one or two pounds."
It was the general opinion of antiquity that Bees were produced from the putrid bodies of cattle. Varro says they are called bougonai by the Greeks, because they arise from putrefied bullocks. In another place he mentions their rising from these putrid animals, and quotes the authority of Archelaus, who says Bees proceed from bullocks, and wasps from horses. Virgil, however, is much more satisfactory, for he gives us the recipe in all its details for producing these insects:
First, in a place, by nature close, they build A narrow flooring, gutter'd, wall'd, and til'd. In this, four windows are contriv'd, that strike To the four winds oppos'd, their beams oblique, A steer of two years old they take, whose head Now first with burnished horns begins to spread: They stop his nostrils, while he strives in vain To breathe free air, and struggles with his pain. Knock'd down, he dies: his bowels bruis'd within, Betray no wound on his unbroken skin. Extended thus, in his obscene abode, They leave the beast; but first sweet flowers are strow'd Beneath his body, broken boughs and thyme, And pleasing Cassia, just renew'd in prime. This must be done, ere spring makes equal day, When western winds on curling waters play; Ere painted meads produce their flowery crops, Or swallows twitter on the chimney tops. The tainted blood, in this close prison pent, Begins to boil, and thro' the bones ferment. Then wond'rous to behold, new creatures rise, A moving mass at first, and short of thighs; Till shooting out with legs, and imp'd with wings, The grubs proceed to Bees with pointed stings: And more and more affecting air, they try Their tender pinions and begin to fly.
This absurd notion was also promulgated by the great English chronicler, Hollingshed; for, says this author, "Hornets, wasps, Bees, and such like, whereof we have great store, and of which an opinion is conceived, that the first do breed of the corruption of dead horses, the second of pears and apples corrupted, and the last of kine and oxen; which may be true, especially the first and latter in some parts of the beast, and not their whole substances, as also in the second, sith we never have wasps but when our fruit beginneth to wax ripe."
To conclude the history of this belief, the following remarks of the learned Swammerdam will not be inappropriate. He says: "It is probable that the not rightly understanding Samson's adventure of the Lion, gave rise to the popular opinion of Bees springing from dead Lions, Oxen, and Horses; and this opinion may have been considerably strengthened, and indeed in a manner confirmed, by the great number of Worms that are often found during the summer months in the carcasses of such animals, especially as these Worms somewhat resemble those produced from the eggs of Bees. However ridiculous this opinion must appear, many great men have not been ashamed to adopt and defend it. The industrious Goedaert has ventured to ascribe the origin of Bees to certain dunghill Worms, and the learned de Mei joins with him in this opinion; though neither of them had any observation to ground their belief upon, but that of the external resemblance between the Bee and a certain kind of Fly produced from these Worms."