In the ancient

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

region, bugonia or bougonia was a

ritual A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, b ...

based on the belief that bees were spontaneously (equivocally) generated from a

cow Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ma ...

's carcass, although it is possible that the ritual had more currency as a poetic and learned

trope Trope or tropes may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Trope (cinema), a cinematic convention for conveying a concept * Trope (literature), a figure of speech or common literary device * Trope (music), any of a variety of different things ...

than as an actual practice.

Description

A detailed description of the bugonia process can be found in

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

Geoponica The ''Geoponica'' or ''Geoponika'' ( el, Γεωπονικά) is a twenty-book collection of agricultural lore, compiled during the 10th century in Constantinople for the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. The Greek word ''Geoponic ...

'':

XV, 2, 22 sqq.

Build a house, ten cubits high, with all the sides of equal dimensions, with one door, and four windows, one on each side; put an ox into it, thirty months old, very fat and fleshy; let a number of young men kill him by beating him violently with clubs, so as to mangle both flesh and bones, but taking care not to shed any blood; let all the orifices, mouth, eyes, nose etc. be stopped up with clean and fine linen, impregnated with pitch; let a quantity of thyme be strewed under the reclining animal, and then let windows and doors be closed and covered with a thick coating of clay, to prevent the access of air or wind. After three weeks have passed, let the house be opened, and let light and fresh air get access to it, except from the side from which the wind blows strongest. Eleven days afterwards, you will find the house full of bees, hanging together in clusters, and nothing left of the ox but horns, bones and hair.

The story of

Aristaeus A minor god in Greek mythology, attested mainly by Athenian writers, Aristaeus (; ''Aristaios'' (Aristaîos); lit. “Most Excellent, Most Useful”), was the culture hero credited with the discovery of many useful arts, including bee-keeping; ...

was an archetype of this ritual, serving to instruct

bee keepers Beekeeping (or apiculture) is the maintenance of bee colonies, commonly in man-made beehives. Honey bees in the genus '' Apis'' are the most-commonly-kept species but other honey-producing bees such as ''Melipona'' stingless bees are also kept. ...

on how to recover from the loss of their bees. By extension, it was thought that fumigation with

cow dung Cow dung, also known as cow pats, cow pies or cow manure, is the waste product (faeces) of bovine animal species. These species include domestic cattle ("cows"), bison ("buffalo"), yak, and water buffalo. Cow dung is the undigested residue ...

was beneficial to the health of the hive.

Variations

The idea that

wasp A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. Th ...

s are born of the corpses of

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million y ...

s was often described alongside bugonia. And given that European wasps bear a passing resemblance to European bees, it may be possible that the myth arose out of a mis-reported or misunderstood observation of a natural event. Different variations are attested, such as simply burying the cow, or covering the corpse with mud or dung. Another variation states that use of the

rumen The rumen, also known as a paunch, is the largest stomach compartment in ruminants and the larger part of the reticulorumen, which is the first chamber in the alimentary canal of ruminant animals. The rumen's microbial favoring environment allow ...

alone is sufficient. In Ancient Egypt the ox would be buried with its

horns Horns or The Horns may refer to: * Plural of Horn (instrument), a group of musical instruments all with a horn-shaped bells * The Horns (Colorado), a summit on Cheyenne Mountain * ''Horns'' (novel), a dark fantasy novel written in 2010 by Joe Hill ...

projecting above the surface of the ground. When severed, bees would emerge from the base of the horns. Bugonia is described twice in the second half of Virgil's Georgics and frames the

epyllion A sleeping Ariadne's abandonment by Theseus is the topic of an elaborate ecphrasis">Theseus.html" ;"title="Ariadne's abandonment by Theseus">Ariadne's abandonment by Theseus is the topic of an elaborate ecphrasis in Catullus 64, the most famous e ...

in the second half. The first description, opening the second half of the fourth book, describes a 'traditional' form of the ritual, followed by the tale of Aristaeus, who after losing his bees, descends to the home of his mother, the nymph Cyrene, where he is given instructions on how to restore his colonies. He must capture the seer,

Proteus In Greek mythology, Proteus (; Ancient Greek: Πρωτεύς, ''Prōteus'') is an early prophetic sea-god or god of rivers and oceanic bodies of water, one of several deities whom Homer calls the "Old Man of the Sea" ''(hálios gérôn)''. ...

, and force him to reveal which divine spirit he angered. Proteus changes into many forms but is bound at last and recounts how he caused the death of

Eurydice Eurydice (; Ancient Greek: Εὐρυδίκη 'wide justice') was a character in Greek mythology and the Auloniad wife of Orpheus, who tried to bring her back from the dead with his enchanting music. Etymology Several meanings for the name ...

, thus angering the nymphs. the ritual demanded of Aristaeus by Cyrene upon his return is markedly different. He is to sacrifice four bulls, four heifers, a black sheep and a calf in an open glen. This second version served as the climax of a large work so may be based more on the traditional Roman sacrificial ritual than bugonia itself in order to close the Georgics in a more symbolically appropriate way. Thus the first version can reflect man's relation to the gods in the

Golden Age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during ...

and the later the current relation.

Thomas Habinek Thomas Habinek (December 25, 1953 – January 19, 2019) was an American classical scholar. He specialized in Latin literature and Roman cultural history. Life and career Habinek received his AB in classics from Princeton University in 1975, and l ...

(1990)
Sacrifice, Society, and Vergil's Ox-born Bees
UC Berkeley: Department of Classics, UCB.

Etymology

''Bougonia'' comes from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

''" βοῦς"'', meaning ''" ox"'' and ''" γονή"'' meaning ''" progeny"''. Furthermore, the expressions ''"bugenès melissae"'' and ''"taurigenae apes"'' meant ''"oxen-born bees"'' and the ancient Greeks would sometimes simply call honey bees ''"bugenès"'' or ''"taurigenae"''.

Ancient attestation

Perhaps the earliest mention is by

Nicander of Colophon Nicander of Colophon ( grc-gre, Νίκανδρος ὁ Κολοφώνιος, Níkandros ho Kolophṓnios; fl. 2nd century BC), Greek poet, physician and grammarian, was born at Claros (Ahmetbeyli in modern Turkey), near Colophon, where his famil ...

, ''Theriaca''
741

, ''Alexipharmaca''
447
The process is described by

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...

in the fourth book of the ''

Georgics The ''Georgics'' ( ; ) is a poem by Latin poet Virgil, likely published in 29 BCE. As the name suggests (from the Greek word , ''geōrgika'', i.e. "agricultural (things)") the subject of the poem is agriculture; but far from being an example ...

''.

, ''Georgica'', IV, 284 sqq. Many other writers mention the practice.

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

, ''Fasti''
I, 376–78

, ''Metamorphoseon libri''
XV, 365–66

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' ...

, ''Naturalis historia''
XI, 23 (70)21, 47 (81)

Claudius Aelianus Claudius Aelianus ( grc, Κλαύδιος Αἰλιανός, Greek transliteration ''Kláudios Ailianós''; c. 175c. 235 AD), commonly Aelian (), born at Praeneste, was a Roman author and teacher of rhetoric who flourished under Septimius Severus ...

, ''De natura animalium''
II, 57

Servius Servius is the name of: * Servius (praenomen), the personal name * Maurus Servius Honoratus, a late fourth-century and early fifth-century grammarian * Servius Tullius, the Roman king * Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the 1st century BC Roman jurist See ...

, ''In Vergilii carmina comentarii. Georgica''
IV, 285
an
286

Libanius Libanius ( grc-gre, Λιβάνιος, Libanios; ) was a teacher of rhetoric of the Sophist school in the Eastern Roman Empire. His prolific writings make him one of the best documented teachers of higher education in the ancient world and a criti ...

, ''Progymnasmata'', exercises in enconium and invective
8, 15

Isidore of Seville Isidore of Seville ( la, Isidorus Hispalensis; c. 560 – 4 April 636) was a Spanish scholar, theologian, and archbishop of Seville. He is widely regarded, in the words of 19th-century historian Montalembert, as "the last scholar of ...

, ''Origines''
XII, 8, 2

Sextus Empiricus Sextus Empiricus ( grc-gre, Σέξτος Ἐμπειρικός, ; ) was a Ancient Greece, Greek Pyrrhonism, Pyrrhonist philosopher and Empiric school physician. His philosophical works are the most complete surviving account of ancient Greek and ...

, ''Πυρρώνειοι Υποτυπώσεις''
I, 41

Porphyry of Tyre Porphyry of Tyre (; grc-gre, Πορφύριος, ''Porphýrios''; ar, فُرْفُورِيُوس, ''Furfūriyūs''; – ) was a Neoplatonic philosopher born in Tyre, Roman Phoenicia during Roman rule. He edited and published ''The Enneads'' ...

, ''Περὶ τοῦ ἐν Ὀδυσσείᾳ τῶν Νυμφῶν Ἄντρου''
15 and 18

Origen Origen of Alexandria, ''Ōrigénēs''; Origen's Greek name ''Ōrigénēs'' () probably means "child of Horus" (from , "Horus", and , "born"). ( 185 – 253), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an Early Christianity, early Christian scholar, ...

, ''Contra Celsum''
4, 57
/ref> In the

Hermetic Hermetic or related forms may refer to: * of or related to the ancient Greek Olympian god Hermes * of or related to Hermes Trismegistus, a legendary Hellenistic figure based on the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth ** , the ancient and m ...

Cyranides The ''Cyranides'' (also ''Kyranides'' or ''Kiranides'') is a compilation of magico-medical works in Greek first put together in the 4th century. Latin and Arabic translations also exists. It has been described as a " farrago" and a ''texte vivant' ...

it is reported that

worm Worms are many different distantly related bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limbs, and no eyes (though not always). Worms vary in size from microscopic to over in length for marine polychaete wor ...

s are born after one week and bees after three weeks. Quoting

's ''

Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' ( la, Metamorphōsēs, from grc, μεταμορφώσεις: "Transformations") is a Latin narrative poem from 8 CE by the Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the wo ...

'' (XV.361–68),

Florentinus Florentinus was a Roman politician who served as Urban prefect of Rome from 395 to 397 AD. Career A native of Augusta Treverorum, Florentinus was possibly a Notarius around 379/380 AD. He was the Comes sacrarum largitionum in the west from 385 to 3 ...

of the Geoponica reports the process as a proven and obvious fact:

If any further evidence is necessary to enhance the faith in things already proved, you may behold that carcases, decaying from the effect of time and tepid moisture, change into small animals. Go, and bury slaughtered oxen -- the fact is known from experience -- the rotten entrails produce flower-sucking bees, who, like their parents, roam over pastures, bent upon work, and hopeful of the future. A buried war-horse produces the hornet.

Scepticism

Pre-dating Nicander by a century,

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...

never mentions bugonia and dismisses generation of bees from other animals. Furthermore, he is able to distinguish the

castes Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultura ...

drone Drone most commonly refers to: * Drone (bee), a male bee, from an unfertilized egg * Unmanned aerial vehicle * Unmanned surface vehicle, watercraft * Unmanned underwater vehicle or underwater drone Drone, drones or The Drones may also refer to: ...

worker The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual labour, manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via wage, waged or salary, salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also "Designation ...

, and "king" so he would certainly have been able to distinguish bees from their mimics. Later authors mention bugonia in commentaries on Aristotle's ''Physics''. Archelaus calls bees the "''factitious progeny of a decaying ox''".Archelaus, through

Marcus Terentius Varro Marcus Terentius Varro (; 116–27 BC) was a Roman polymath and a prolific author. He is regarded as ancient Rome's greatest scholar, and was described by Petrarch as "the third great light of Rome" (after Vergil and Cicero). He is sometimes calle ...

Celsus Celsus (; grc-x-hellen, Κέλσος, ''Kélsos''; ) was a 2nd-century Greek philosopher and opponent of early Christianity. His literary work, ''The True Word'' (also ''Account'', ''Doctrine'' or ''Discourse''; Greek: grc-x-hellen, Λόγ� ...

and

Columella Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (; Arabic: , 4 – ) was a prominent writer on agriculture in the Roman Empire. His ' in twelve volumes has been completely preserved and forms an important source on Roman agriculture, together with the wo ...

are recorded as having opposed the practice.

Later sources

Pietro de' Crescenzi Pietro de' Crescenzi ( 1230/35 – c. 1320), la, 'Petrus de Crescentiis', was a Bolognese jurist,Robert G. Calkins, "Piero de' Crescenzi and the Medieval Garden", in ''Medieval Gardens'', ed. Elisabeth B. MacDougall, Dumbarton Oaks, 1986: 155 ...

refers to Bugonia circa 1304. In 1475,

Konrad of Megenberg Conrad of Megenberg (german: Konrad von Megenberg, la, Conradus Megenbergensis; 1309–1374) was a German Catholic scholar, and a writer. Biography Conrad was born in either Mainberg or Mebenburg, both in Bavaria. He was born on 2 February 13 ...

, in the first German book of natural history, claimed that the bees are born from the

skin Skin is the layer of usually soft, flexible outer tissue covering the body of a vertebrate animal, with three main functions: protection, regulation, and sensation. Other cuticle, animal coverings, such as the arthropod exoskeleton, have diffe ...

and the

stomach The stomach is a muscular, hollow organ in the gastrointestinal tract of humans and many other animals, including several invertebrates. The stomach has a dilated structure and functions as a vital organ in the digestive system. The stomach i ...

of an ox. Michael Herren gives a detailed description of bugonia drawn from ''Geoponica''. Johannes Colerus whose book constituted the book of reference for many generations of

apiarist A beekeeper is a person who keeps honey bees. Beekeepers are also called honey farmers, apiarists, or less commonly, apiculturists (both from the Latin '' apis'', bee; cf. apiary). The term beekeeper refers to a person who keeps honey bees i ...

s expresses the same belief in bugonia. The method appears even in European apiculture books of the 1700s.

In Abrahamic religions

A similar story of the creation of bees is seen in the

Book of Judges The Book of Judges (, ') is the seventh book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. In the narrative of the Hebrew Bible, it covers the time between the conquest described in the Book of Joshua and the establishment of a kingdom i ...

, where

Samson Samson (; , '' he, Šīmšōn, label= none'', "man of the sun") was the last of the judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Book of Judges (chapters 13 to 16) and one of the last leaders who "judged" Israel before the institution o ...

puts forward the riddle of "''out of the strong came forth sweetness,''" referring to a swarm of bees found inside a dead

lion The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large Felidae, cat of the genus ''Panthera'' native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphi ...

. The bugonia belief is also reported in the

Jerusalem Talmud The Jerusalem Talmud ( he, תַּלְמוּד יְרוּשַׁלְמִי, translit=Talmud Yerushalmi, often for short), also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud of the Land of Israel, is a collection of rabbinic notes on the second-century ...

and the

Babylonian Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...

Philo Philo of Alexandria (; grc, Φίλων, Phílōn; he, יְדִידְיָה, Yəḏīḏyāh (Jedediah); ), also called Philo Judaeus, was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt. Philo's deplo ...

offers this origin of bees as a possible reason why honey is forbidden as a sacrifice to

Yahweh Yahweh *''Yahwe'', was the national god of ancient Israel and Judah. The origins of his worship reach at least to the early Iron Age, and likely to the Late Bronze Age if not somewhat earlier, and in the oldest biblical literature he posse ...

Origin of the belief

One explanation claims that any of the numerous

Batesian mimics Batesian mimicry is a form of mimicry where a harmless species has evolved to imitate the warning signals of a harmful species directed at a predator of them both. It is named after the English naturalist Henry Walter Bates, after his work on Bu ...

of bees with

scavenger Scavengers are animals that consume dead organisms that have died from causes other than predation or have been killed by other predators. While scavenging generally refers to carnivores feeding on carrion, it is also a herbivorous feeding b ...

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. The ...

were mistaken for bees ("footless at first, anon with feet and wings"). More specifically, the

hoverfly Hover flies, also called flower flies or syrphid flies, make up the insect family Syrphidae. As their common name suggests, they are often seen hovering or nectaring at flowers; the adults of many species feed mainly on nectar and pollen, while ...

Eristalis tenax ''Eristalis tenax'', the common drone fly, is a common, migratory, cosmopolitan species of hover fly. It is the most widely distributed syrphid species in the world, and is known from all regions except the Antarctic. It has been introduced in ...

'' has received particular attention. While not providing honey, these flies would have been productive

pollinators A pollinator is an animal that moves pollen from the male anther of a flower to the female stigma of a flower. This helps to bring about fertilization of the ovules in the flower by the male gametes from the pollen grains. Insects are the maj ...

. Others argue that beekeepers would have understood that flies do not produce honey and give the explanation that ''

Apis mellifera The western honey bee or European honey bee (''Apis mellifera'') is the most common of the 7–12 species of honey bees worldwide. The genus name ''Apis'' is Latin for "bee", and ''mellifera'' is the Latin for "honey-bearing" or "honey carrying", ...

'' (western honey bee) resorts to any cavity, and in particular cavities of trees and rocks, but also in skulls and in thoracic cavities of large animal carcasses in which to construct a nest. There is one, possibly apocryphal, attestation of actual usage of a man's skull by wasps.

In popular culture

The story of Samson and the bees is celebrated on tins of

Tate & Lyle Tate & Lyle PLC is a British-headquartered, global supplier of food and beverage ingredients to industrial markets. It was originally a sugar refining business, but from the 1970s it began to diversify, eventually divesting its sugar business i ...

golden syrup.

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

knew of bugonia as he says in Henry IV: "''Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb, in the dead carrion''".