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In Greece and Italy: Ceres

Cybele, or Rhea, the great Earth-mother, is, like Vishnu, though to a less extent, the creator of living things, and like him she is often represented in company with bees. Her priestesses were termed melissæ, they being, according to some accounts, actually transformed bees. Demeter, or Ceres, symbolized the earth's fertility, while her daughter, Persephone, or Proserpine, symbolized one aspect of that fertility, the springing forth of verdure in summer and its disappearance in winter; and of them Porphyry says: - "The priestesses of Ceres, also, as being initiated into the mysteries of the terrene goddess, were called by the ancients bees; and Proserpine herself was denominated by them honied."

To both Ceres and Proserpine honey was offered at sacrifices.

Virgil, exhorting the husbandmen to prepare for the coming of the fruitful season, says, In Greece and Italy "Above all, venerate the gods; and renew to great Ceres the sacred annual rites, offering up thy sacrifices upon the joyous turf, at the expiration of the last days of winter, when the spring is serene. For thee let all the rural youths adore Ceres; to whom mix thou the honeycomb with milk and gentle wine." ...

This libation of honey, milk, and wine was poured upon the sacrifice, the victim having first been led around the fields.

The worship of Ceres in one form or another was very wide-spread.

We are told that once her priestess Melissa, because she would not reveal the secrets she had been set to guard, was torn to pieces by the other women, but that Ceres caused bees to issue from her body; the coming forth of bees from a dead body being a common expression of the immortality of the soul in the early ages.

The bee was sacred to the Greek Artemis, known in Italy as Diana, and who also was symbolical of the creative power, presiding over births, and receiving offerings of honey. Diana was the goddess of the moon as well, and Porphyry tells us : - "The moon, likewise, who presides over generation, was called by the ancients a bee."

The souls of the dead were supposed to come down from the moon upon the earth in the forms of bees, reminding us of the ancient Hindu faith concerning honey, the bee, and the moon.

The transmigration of the souls of the deserving into the bodies of bees was a Greek, as well as a Hindu myth, the origin of which Porphyry perhaps explains in his "Cave of the Nymphs," where he tells us : "All souls, however, proceeding into generation, are not simply called bees, but those who will live in it justly, and who, after having performed such things as are acceptable to the gods, will again return to their kindred stars. For this insect loves to return to the places from whence it first came, and is eminently just and sober. Whence, also, the libations which are made with honey are called sober." Porphyry, in a quotation from Sophocles, expresses the belief that the souls of the departed escaped in the form of bees, - "In swarms while wandering from the dead, A humming sound is heard."