Plato’s doctrine of the transmigration of souls holds that the souls of sober quiet people, untinctured by philosophy come to life as bees. Later than Plato comes Mahomet, who admitted bees, as souls, to paradise; and Porphyry said of fountains; “They are adapted to the nymphs, or those souls which the Ancients call bees.”
Archive for January, 2008
Bees as Souls
Posted in Bee Lore, Beetwixt & Beetween on January 20, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Heaving Up the Coffin and the Hive
Posted in Bee Lore, Beekeeping, Beetwixt & Beetween on January 20, 2008| Leave a Comment »
There is a tradition that when a beekeeper dies, then on the day of the funeral, as the funeral party is preparing to leave the house, the hive and coffin are both “heaved” or lifted at the same moment.
The Bee and the Dream
Posted in Bee Lore, Beetwixt & Beetween on January 20, 2008| Leave a Comment »
There is a strange story told in My School and Schoolmasters which goes as follows:
A friend and I lay on a mossy bank on a hot day. Overcome by the heat my friend fell asleep. As I watching drowsily, I saw a bee issue from the mouth of my sleeping friend, jump down to the ground and crossed along withered grass stubs over a brook cascading over stones, and enter through an interstice into an old ruined building. Alarmed by what I saw, I hastily shook my comrade, who awakened a second or two after the bee, hurrying back had re-entered her mouth. My friend, the sleeper, protested at my waking her saying that she had dreamt that she had walked through a fine country and had come to the banks of a noble river, and just where the clear water went thundering down a precipice, there was a bridge all silver which she crossed and entered, a noble palace on the other side. she was about to help myself to gold and jewels when I woke her and robbed her of this fate.”
I have seen similar stories from Celitic storybooks. I found this version at: http://www.mjt.org/exhibits/bees/beesadd.htm
The rather charming photo is from: http://www.craphound.com/images/beedreams.jpg
Aphrodite and her Melissae in Ancient Greece
Posted in Bee Lore, Bee-ology, Beetwixt & Beetween on January 20, 2008| 19 Comments »
At the temple of Aphrodite at Eryx, priestesses were called “melissae”, which means “bees,” and Aphrodite herself was called Melissa, the queen bee. At the Ephesian temple of Artemis, the melissae were accompanied by transgendered priests called “essenes”, meaning drones. Bees are classified as members of the hymenopteran order, meaning “veil-winged,” recalling the hymen or veil that covered the inner shrine of the Goddess’s temple, and the high priestess who bore the title of Hymen, presiding over marriage rituals and the Honey Moon.
The Birth of Aphrodite (Venus) by Botticelli
Pythagoreans worshipped bees as Aphrodite’s sacred creature, who in their honeycombs create perfect hexagons; their endless symmetry seemed to suggest to them an underlying order in the cosmos. Demeter is also known as the mother bee, who governs the cycles of life. In ancient Greece, the dead were often embalmed in honey in large burial vases, crouched in the fetal position for their next birth.
Stories from: http://www.philomuse.com/kingfisher/lab/bees.htm (A Garden of Bees)
Picture from: http://www.timelessmyths.com/classical/gallery/aphrodite.jpg
Mention of the Bee in the Koran
Posted in Bee Lore, Bee Present, Bee-ology, Beekeeping, Beetwixt & Beetween on January 19, 2008| Leave a Comment »
And the Lord taught the Bee to build its cells in hills, in trees, and in men’s habitats; then to eat of all the produce and find with the skill the precious paths of its Lord: there issues from within their bodies a drink of varying colours, wherein is healing for men; verily this is a sign for those who give thought.
Translated from The Holy Koran sura ‘The Bee’ in ayyats 68 and 69.
Murmuring of Innumerable Bees
Posted in Bee Lore, Bee Present, Beetwixt & Beetween on January 19, 2008| Leave a Comment »
So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales
Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth
Arise to thee; the children call, and I
Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound,
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;
Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro’ the lawn,
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.
From “Come Down O Maid” by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Whole Poem at: http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/10840/
Where the Bee Sucks
Posted in Bee Lore, Bee Present, Beetwixt & Beetween on January 19, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip’s bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry.
On the bat’s back I do fly
After summer merrily.
Merrily, merrily shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
Henry Fuseli: Ariel
From: The Tempest, which was William Shakespeare’s last play. Words spoken by Ariel after he is set free by Prospero.
Picture from: www.english.emory.edu/classes/Shakespeare_Illustrated/Fuseli.Ariel.html
A Bee Story
Posted in Bee Lore, Beetwixt & Beetween on January 18, 2008| Leave a Comment »
(Author Unknown)
Once upon a time the animals had a school.
They had four subjects: running, climbing, flying, and swimming-
and all animals took all subjects.
The duck was good at swimming, better than the teachers in fact.
He made passing grades in running and flying,
but he was almost hopeless in climbing.
So they made him drop swimming to practice more climbing.
Soon he was only average in swimming.
But average is OK, and nobody worried much about it except the duck.
The eagle was considered a troublemaker.
In his climbing class he beat everybody to the top of the tree,
but he had his own way of getting there, which was against the rules.
He always had to stay after school and write,
Cheating is wrong 500 times.
This kept him from soaring, which he loved.
But schoolwork comes first.
The bear flunked because they said he was lazy, especially in winter.
His best time was summer, but school wasn’t open then.
The penguin never went to school because he couldn’t leave home,
and they wouldn’t start a school out where he lived.
The zebra played hooky –– a lot.
The ponies made fun of his stripes, and that made him very sad.
The kangaroo started out at the top of the running class,
but got discouraged trying to run on all fours like the other kids.
The fish quit school because he was bored.
To him all four subjects were the same, but nobody understood that.
They had never been a fish.
The squirrel got A’s in climbing,
but his flying teacher made him start from the ground up instead of the treetop down.
His legs got so sore from practicing takeoffs that he began getting C’s and D’s in running.
But the bee was the biggest problem of all,
so the teacher sent him to Dr. Owl for testing.
Dr. Owl said that the bees wings were just too small for flying
and besides they were in the wrong place.
But the bee never saw Dr. Owls report,
so he just went ahead and flew anyway.
I think I know a bee or two, don’t you?
From: http://teachers.dadeschools.net/mmarcus/a_bee_story.htm
“Tell it to the Bees”
Posted in Bee Lore, Bee Present, Beetwixt & Beetween on January 18, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Bees are symbols of communication. The saying ‘tell it to the bees’ meant using bees to transmit wishes and desires out to God/dess. Bees work in complete cooperation, communicating with each other so that their hive remains intact and productive. Bees in a dream may indicate a need for communication either with a group or with a significant other.
Picture of a Medieval Apiary
Posted in Bee Lore, Beekeeping on January 17, 2008| 1 Comment »
Here is a rather beautiful plate of a medieval apiary from the Tacuinum Sanitatis – a medieval handbook on wellness.
More on TS at: http://www.moleiro.com/infoplus.php?p=TAS/en
Bee Lore 
