The word bee is applied to about 20 families of the Hymenoptera. The term is usually associated with the making of honey. The honeybee builds wax cones in which it stores honey and raises its young. The legs of bees are one of their most sensitive organs. A bee actually tastes through its legs. It is native to Europe, Asia, and Africa and has been introduced into the Western Hemisphere. Bees are also long-time symbols for accomplishing the impossible. For many years, scientists were unable to determine how bees were able to fly. Aerodynamically, the body was too large for the wings. It has only been in more recent times that science determined that bees move their wings at such a high rate of speed that it makes flight possible. Still, it remains to many as a symbol of accomplishing quests that appeared to be impossible.
Bees have been mythical symbols throughout the world. In Hinduism, depending upon how depicted, the bee could relate to Vishnu, Krishna or even Kamma, the god of love.The Hindu gods Vishnu, Krishna, and Indra are called madhava, the "nectar-born ones," In the Rig Veda. Vishnu is often symbolized by a blue bee siting on a lotus, while Krishna has a blue bee on his forehead.
In the early part of the Egyptian civilization, the symbol for royalty in Lower Egypt meant "he who belongs to the bee." Bees were called the tears of the Sun god Ra, and represented birth, death, and resurrection.
In Greece, it was used in the symbology of the Eleusinian Mysteries. In Minoan Crete the bee and the bull had similar mystical meanings. Seals and gemstones often showed a bee on one side and a bull on the other. An onyx gem was found in Knossos which shows the Goddess with the head and eyes of a bee and on her ead double bull horns with a labyrs between them.
The Celts associated it with hidden wisdom.
To see a swarm of bees in China was considered lucky. to the Romans, however, a swarm meant misfortune, defeat in battle, or death. The Koran says that bees symbolize wisdom, harmlessness, and the faithful. Even the Aztecs made reference to a Bee God.
Probably the most significant and consistent symbolism is that of sexuality and fertility, due primarily to its stinger and its part in pollination.
Bee venom, now used in the form of a cream, is a very ancient remedy for joint diseases, such as arthritis. Celtic country folk still say that you must tell the bees if someone in the family dies, or they will fly away. The same applies to marriage. If a bee flies into the house, a stranger is coming. Stolen bees will not thrive, but die. In Wales, to give a hive to someone will bring good luck, but they will not sell bees. However, it is permissible to barter for a hive. Supposedly bees hum loudly on Christmas Eve. It is considered to be unlucky to kill a bee because they are called the Little Servants of God;
