bougonia

"birth from a steer"

"The process... for re-creating the hive of bees in case the original bees die. A two year-old steer is brought to a specially constructed hut that has windows facing in all four directions. The animal is then beaten to death and the remains left in place through the spring. Suddenly, in the rotting flesh a whole cluster of bees is born."
lore of old, from introduction to the Fagles translation of Virgil's Aeneid