Chapter Beauty of Buttermere to Bee of B by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Bed-rock American slang for one's last shilling. A miner's term, called in England the “stone-head,” and in America, the “Bed-rock,” the hard basis rock. When miners get to this bed the mine is exhausted. “I'm come down to the bed-rock,” i.e. my last dollar.

“ `No, no!' continued Tennessee's partner, hastily, `Ill play this yer hand alone. I've come down to the bed-rock; it's just this: Tennessee, thar, has played it pretty rough and expensive, like, on a stranger ... Now what's the fair thing? Some would say more, and some would say less. Here's seventeen hundred dollars in coarse gold and a watch- it's about all my pile- and call it square.' ”- Bret Harte; Tennessee's Partner.

Bedver King Arthur's butler; Caius or Kaye was his sewer. (Geoffrey: British History, ix. 13.)

Bee The Athenian Bee. Plato. (See Athenian Bee , page 72, col. 1.)
   It is said that when Plato was in his cradle, a swarm of bees alighted on his mouth. The story is good enough for poets and orators. The same tale is told of St. Ambrose. (See Ambrose, page 41, col. 1.)
   The Bee of Athens. Sophocles. (See Attic Bee, page 73, col. 1.)
   Xenophon (B.C. 444-359) is also called “the Bee of Athens,” or “the Athenian Bee.”
    See also Animals, page 50, col. 2.
   To have your head full of bees. Full of devices, crotchets, fancies, inventions, and dreamy theories. The connection between bees and the soul was once generally maintained: hence Mahomet admits bees to Paradise. Porphyry says of fountains, “they are adapted to the nymphs, or those souls which the ancients called bees.” The moon was called a bee by the priestesses of Ceres, and the word lunatic or moon-struck still means one with “bees in his head.”
   Il a des rats dans la tête.”- French Proverb. (See Maggot.)
   To have a bee in your bonnet. To be cranky; to have an idiosyncrasy; also, to carry a jewel or ornament in your cap. (See Bighes.)

“For pity, air, find out that bee
That bore my love away-
`I'll seek him in your bonnet brave. ..."
Herrick: The Mad Maid's Song.