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In Greece and Italy: Dionysos

In Oriental countries honey very often constituted a part of the first food of children, and in its capacity of providing nourishment became quite naturally symbolical of the nurse or the mother, and hence doubtless one reason for its constant relation to those divinities connected with procreation. Dionysos, or Bacchus, in his earlier form was a most beneficent god, also symbolizing that force in nature which rises into new life after the sleep of death, or the coming of spring after winter. He was the bearer of high inspiration to man, freeing him from sordid and petty cares. According to Ovid it was Bacchus who first discovered honey. As he moved through the woods of the Thessalian mountains Rhodope and Pangæa, accompanied by his train of followers making the air resound with their music, the birds flew near overcome by curiosity, and with them the hitherto unknown bees.

Bacchus caught the pretty creatures that were thus fruitlessly flying about, and shut them up in a hollow tree. In Greece and Italy Upon this they settled down into communal life and made honey for him.

This honey was deservedly popular, and no wonder pleasure-loving Silenus was seduced by it.

One day he stole into the woods determined to taste it. He found the tree, stood on his donkey, and stretched his short body until he was standing on tiptoe almost within reach of the prize. But the bees flew angrily out and stung him on his bald pate, whereupon he fell backward upon his donkey, which, being a sharer in the stings of course, - as was poor Silenus' frequent experience in similar situations, - kicked him, and in sad plight he was found lying on the ground by the Satyrs whom he called to his assistance, and who as usual made sport of his misfortune.

Dionysos had good reason to befriend the bees, for, like his father Zeus, he was nourished in infancy on honey. Dionysos was the son of Zeus and Semele, and his mother, having insisted upon beholding her husband Zeus in all his glory, was punished for her folly by dying at sight of the thunderer's brilliancy. The babe was saved from the fierce glow by Hermes and afterwards given by Zeus to the care of Makris, or, as some call her, Brisa, the daughter of Aristæus, to which story Apollonius Rhodius thus refers in "Medea's Wedding": - "At once they mixed a bowl for the blessed gods, as was right, and dragged sheep to the altar with pious hands, and made ready that very night for the maiden her bridal bed in the holy cave, where Makris once did dwell, the daughter of Aristæus, the bee-keeper, who discovered the use of honey and the fatness of the olive, prize of toil. She it was, that at the first took to her breast the Nysean son of Zeus in Eubœa, home of the Abantes, and with honey she moistened his parched lips when Hermes brought him from out the fire."

Makris, or Brisa, taught Bacchus to press the honey from the honey-comb.

In the Dionysian temple, upon the Lesbian promontory Brisa, Bacchus was worshipped as Bacchus Brisæus, the god of sweetness, the honey-god.