It is called “bugonia” because that word comes from ancient Greek and literally means “ox birth,” referring to a mythic ritual where bees were believed to be born from the carcass of a sacrificed cow or ox.

What bugonia originally meant

  • In ancient Mediterranean folklore, people believed that if you killed and prepared a cow or ox in a specific ritual way, a new swarm of bees would spontaneously emerge from the dead animal’s body.
  • The term for this was “bugonia,” from Greek bou- (ox/cow) and gonía (offspring/birth), so the name directly points to “bees as offspring of an ox.”

Why the name “bugonia” is interesting now

  • Modern uses of “bugonia” (like the film title) lean on that strange, almost grotesque idea of new life or a new swarm emerging out of decay and sacrifice, especially tied to bees or “bugs” and a larger system (like society or the planet).
  • Because the original myth involves both violent sacrifice and unexpected renewal, the name carries a built‑in tension: suffering and exploitation on one side, and transformation or rebirth on the other.

TL;DR: It is called “bugonia” because in ancient Greek myth that’s the name of a ritual where bees were thought to be born from the corpse of a sacrificed ox—literally “ox-born” or “ox-birth.”

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.