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Bees relate to humankind on both ends of the pain/pleasure continuum, from sting to honey. We forgive the
bees their occasional hostility for providing us with honey, one of the most delicious of foods, a sticky
substance that makes endorphins dance. We love honey on toast in the morning, Brits spread it on scones in
the afternoon, Greeks enjoy flaky baklava as dessert. Fermented honey becomes mead, created before wine and
the most ancient alcoholic drink, discovered in Scottish tombs from the Iron Age.
The world has more bees than you may imagine – twenty thousand species buzz around, although we take honey from only four types, in the U.S. principally Apis mellifera. Honeybees long have played an important role in mythology and folklore almost everywhere. In the Near East and Aegean worlds, people believed that honeybees could travel to the underworld and buzz messages to the gods. The Minoan tholos tombs took the form of beehives; bees and honey were arranged in graves. Alexander the Great rested in a honey-filled coffin. Perhaps this divinity connection accounted for bees’ status as the “wisest of insects” in many cultures, credited with esoteric powers. The Pythian pre-Olympian priestess remained the “Delphic bee” long after Apollo had usurped her role as oracle, and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo acknowledges that the god’s gift of prophecy derived from three bee-maidens. |
Apollo’s sister
Artemis shared his bond with bees. In her later role as Diana of Ephesus, beehives symbolized the
deity’s fertility rites. Her cult was called the “hive,” her priests and priestesses “worker bees.”
Demeter’s priestesses were similarly termed, and their goddess was the “queen bee.”
The Greeks offered libations of honey to their gods, and believed it to be the food of muses and poets. As for honey fermented into mead, in the classical Greek language “honey-intoxicated” was a pleasant term for drunk. Bees lost none of their symbolic meaning with the rise of Christianity.  Dawnsio, dawnsio, little bees – keep to your hives and do not roam. – From a witch’s blessing for honey |
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