History records two instances, according to Whitely Stokes, in which bees have been useful in warfare as weapons against besieging forces. The first is related by Appian of the siege of Themiscyra, in Pontus, by Lucullus in his war against Mithridates. Turrets were brought up, mounds were built and huge mines were made by the Romans. The people of Themiscyra dug open these mines above, and through the holes cast down upon the workmen bees and other wild animals and hives or swarms of bees.
The second instance is recorded in an Irish manuscript in the Bibliotheque royale, at Brussels, and tells how the Danes and Norwegians attacked Chester, which was defended by the Saxons, and some Gallic auxiliaries. The Danes were worsted by a stratagem, but the Norwegians, sheltered by hurdles, tried to pierce the walls of the town-when ‘what the Saxons and the Gaedhil, who were among them, did was to throw down large rocks, by which they broke down the hurdles over their heads. What the others did to check this was to place posts under the hurdles.
What the Saxons did next was to put all the beer and water of the town into the caldrons of the town, to boil them and spill them down upon those who were under the hurdles, so that their skins were peeled off. The remedy which the Locheans applied to this was to place the hides outside on the hurdles. What the Saxons did next was to throw down all the beehives in the town upon the besiegers, which prevented them from moving their hands or legs, from the number of bees which stung them. They afterward desisted and left the city.-London Athenaeum.
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