Jul 1, 2020

DESIGN | Symbolism | Bee

All my work is packed with symbolism, whether it be hidden or in a more obvious form.

Here is one that you will find in my art.

| BEE |

Bee Icon | Geometric Nature Art | Vector | Tattoo Illustration

• There are different aspects to the bees symbolic meaning.

• Words often associated with the bee are ; community, family, working together, brightness and personal power, love, life, order, wisdom, beauty, delight, sweetness, provision, nurturing, organisation, productivity, communication, female, balance, growth, healing.

• The honeybee is most often associated with the great mother & goddess, since the queen bee dominates honeybee society. Queen bees (or honeybees) are symbolic of the supremacy of the female. The female worker bees decide amongst themselves, when to create another queen. The Queen bee is created by feeding an ordinary larva only on ‘ royal jelly’ ( a glandular substance) . Her pheromones are spread by contact with the worker bees. This gives the hive its distinct identity

Flower Of Life Hexagon Icon | Geometric Nature Art | Vector | Tattoo Illustration

• A drone is a male honey bee. Unlike the female worker bee, drones do not have stingers and gather neither nectar nor pollen. A drone's primary role is to mate with an unfertilised queen.The drones, unable to feed themselves rely on the female bees for food. Once the queen bee is impregnated, they simply stop feeding the drones until they die from starvation and are then ejected from the hive.

• The Queen bee can lay up to 2,000 eggs a day. Worker honeybees will care for the queen & the nursery, build the comb, feed the drones, defend the hive & forage for nectar & pollen. All the members of the hive work together to support the queen. They do this in order for the queen to insure new life, and continuation of the colony. This is symbolic of a family working together for the benefit of the group. It’s symbolic of teamwork too.

• A pound of honey requires 25,000 trips between flower & hive. This drop contains the essence of over 2 million flowers. Comb building bees fill themselves with honey, hook together in long loops and through a sort of mediative process turn honey into wax, which they sculpt into hexagonal structures.

• The intricacy of the honeycomb and honey making process was identified with divine wisdom. They construct their honeycomb from thousands of perfectly formed hexagons, also seen in Sacred Geometry (flower of life) A hexagon has six sides. The number six is symbolic of love (six is a sacred number for the goddess Venus), communication, balance and union.

Flower Of Life Icon | Geometric Nature Art | Vector | Tattoo Illustration

• Bees are believed to be able to foresee the future, and considered by many to be deities in their own right.

• Bees are symbolic of order and immortality, cooperation and industry.

• In the ancient world, the bee was very important indeed, as the honey it produced was one of the few naturally occurring sweet substances and it was also a preservative.

• Images of the bee can be found on coins from Ephesus, 5th century BC.

• The ancient Egyptians were among the first to raise bees, where they were the symbol of the lower kingdom. • In Minoan symbolism the Goddess appears as half woman, half bee.

• One of the symbols of Aphrodite was a golden honey comb. It was believed that the souls of her Melissae priestesses were contained in the bodies of the bees.

• In Hinduism, deities Indra, Krishna & Vishnu are called ’the nectar-born’. The sound of the rising Kundalini serpent, awaked from its coiled state, is compared to to the humming of the bee.

• Bees are equated with the bliss of nirvana in India, heavenly pleasures in China.

• Bees produce wax, and as such are linked to Christian places of worship such as abbeys and churches as the monks and nuns used the wax to create candles.

• If the bee has to defend herself, the sting comes away from the body and she will die. Thus bees are symbolic of great heroism and sacrifice, unlike the wasp which can sting again and again. •The bee performs an elaborate dance to indicate the whereabouts of a rich crop of flowers. • It has been a custom for hundreds of years, for the beekeeper to tell the bees the news of the family and household, especially births and deaths.

• A swarm of bees is thought to be carrying the soul of the deceased away with them. • Because bees feed on the nectar of flowers and therefore on sunlight, they are agents of transmutation (making something from nothing)

• A Bee’s honeycomb represents the Heart Chakra and life’s sweetness.