Bee Lore

“Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge.  We are perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind.”

Quotation  from the Preface to  “The Genealogy of Morals” (written in 1887) by Friedrich Nietzsche the German philosopher – who lived from 1844 to 1900.

What a lovely analogy – “honey gatherers of the mind!”  Nietzsche died well before the invention of the internet – which, by his analogy has surely now become a truly magnificent “beehive of our knowledge”.   And how quickly the honey gathering of the mind has accelerated with all the search engines, blogs and wikis that are now available to us.  Even more reason for us all to find the hidden treasure of the secrets of life that the bees have known for so many millions of years!

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I am fascinated by the Ancient Traditions of the Melissae and found this on the web:

Artist Statement by Nancy Macko

‘My last major piece was an ambitious installation entitled Dance of the Melissae, a multi-sensory, multi-media body of work that explored the world of the honey bee society and its relationship to art, science, technology and ancient matriarchal cultures. This piece was exhibited at the Brand Library Art Gallery in Glendale, California in 1994. The 3,000 square foot space lent itself well to my ideas for creating a multi-sensory construction of an ancient and sacred site and its interior components. The integration and centralization of bees and bee worship by ancient matriarchal cultures are historical testament to the power and fascination of the astounding world of bees.

Borrowing images from nature and bee society, I attempted to reveal the inherent connection between the natural world and technology. The piece incorporated mixed-media wall reliefs, found-object sculptures and computer-generated photographic images installed together and linking traditional media (drawing, painting, printmaking and sculpture) with the more contemporary world of digital media. From a conceptual base that is framed by feminist thought, I am using the “bee” and the “honeycomb” as metaphors to re-interpret scientific ideas. My intention is to suggest that science is based not only on observing nature’s structures but also on imagining them.

“The exhibition thus becomes an investigation of the Enlightenment from the perspective of the practitioner; Nancy Macko’s critique of the information world suggests a Kuhnian paradigmatic shift in which technology becomes ritual, science reverts to magic and art is removed from the site of culture and comes back to life.” (J. M. S. Willette, “How Sweet It Is,” Artweek, February 17, 1994.)’

I’m not exactly sure what this Kuhnian paradigmatic shift is – but you can find out more on Nancy Macko’s work at: http://www.cla.purdue.edu/waaw/Ressler/artists/mackostat.html

See also: http://www.nancymacko.com/ about Nancy Macko’s exibition on LA a year ago – including a wall of hexagons – none of which I saw, unfortunately.  But I think her art and interpretation of the bee lore and feminism is fascinating!

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Bees are often considered a symbol of the Goddess or Divine Feminine because they are ruled by queens. In particular, they are associated with the goddess Venus because part of their labor is the indirect fertilization of flowers, all of which come under the dominion of Venus.

Without bees, many species of flowers would die out, and so the bee may justly be considered a handmaiden of that goddess. There is a Greek tradition, too, of the Nine Muses, the divine patronesses or music and poetry, taking on the form of bees. This comports well with the rulership of Venus over the arts.

From: http://www.polarissite.net/page26.html

See also my entry on Aphrodite/Venus: https://beelore.com/2008/01/20/the-melissae-and-aphrodite-in-ancient-greece/

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