Thanks for the Lessing, Birthe. I think the first half of Lessing's poem owes more to a different bee poem from the Greek Anthology, written in the style of Anacreon (Anacreontea 35 [40]). Here's Robert Herrick's translation of it:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/180682
The fact that the national anthem of the United States borrows its tune from a song called
"To Anacreon in Heaven" testifies to Anacreon's popularity in the late 1700s and early 1800s; Goethe translated a poem attributed to him, too, then learned to his disgust that many of the poems attributed to Anacreon (582-485 BCE) were actually 2nd- and 1st-century imitations.
The second half seems to be all Lessing's, although I could be mistaken.