I know everything you've iterated – it's all on the Lyle's link I provided, but thanks for clarifying it for folks that can't be bothered to click!.

If you're confused about the beginning (and not the point of this jolly little missive by myself which should be obvious), the point of the beginning is that I was a child, and they looked liked flies buzzing round a corpse – still do, actually!

Lyle made a play on it to get his motto. The bible makes a different sort of play in it's allegorical story.

For myself, I've always remembered and liked the motto as a curious amalgam of good and bad – after all, I spent long enough looking at it through all those long winter breakfasts.

Abram Lyle had strong religious beliefs, which is why the Lyle's Golden Syrup trademark depicts a quotation from the Bible. In the Old Testament (Book of Judges 14:14) Samson was travelling to the land of the Philistines in search of a wife. During the journey he killed a lion, and on his return past the same spot he noticed that a swarm of bees had formed a comb of honey in the carcass. Samson later turned this into a riddle: "Out of the eater came forth meat and out of the strong came forth sweetness".