This is the only case of the word used to describe Samson's "riddle" being used to mean such in the Bible. In the other instances where the word is used it means "prophecy" or "proverb." Still, there is evidence of riddles and word play existing in the culture of the time. Samson's riddle, though, kind of reads like a "what's in my pocket?" riddle.

Some scholars have tried to push the words to mean different things in order to make sense of it. One interesting theory is that Samson's riddle comes from or shares a source with the stories of the Arcadian god Aristaios, the god of beekeeping.

This is the story of Aristaios from Ovid's Fasti (admittedly much later than Judges, but drawing from an earlier tradition). Aristaios' bees all die and his mother tells him to speak to the sea god Proteus to get help. Proteus tells him:

‘You seek a technique to recover bees? Sacrifice a bullock and inter its carcass: the one interred will supply what you seek.’ The shepherd follows orders. From the putrid ox swarms bubble. One life axed bred a thousand.

There is a certain riddling element to this account too, in the idea of one death creating so many lives.

Still, the riddle is strange. Bees don't actually hive in carcasses. Perhaps the best suggestion for understanding it, is this