Step into the Night Garden: Bees in Mythology
“Look tonight at the stars. Let them overwhelm you in the postures of their bright dance. Face the vastness which they dot like silver bees, and sound with your own brain the mystery, hazarding at the inscrutable plan of things.”
Although it's described as liquid sunshine, a long time ago, people said honey came from the moon. Surrounded by glittering bees under the guise of stars, the moon was the hive within Night's garden.
Like the moon illuminates the steps of our mythical journeys, a bee can serve as a guide or an oracle. In addition to supernatural sight, these winged creatures are master builders. Legend says that the Temple of Delphi, one of the most holy temples in the ancient world, was constructed by bees.
Bees in Mythology
Also known as the Temple of Apollo, this sanctuary changed hands over the years and was sacred to Apollo, Gaia, and possibly Dionysus. It was also home to the Pythia or the Oracle of Delphi. Both Mortals and gods visited the Pythia when a crossroads loomed. In stories, she is illustrated as a maiden or a giant, deadly python. However, despite her serpentine roots, the Oracle of Delphi and her priestesses were labeled as bees.
Wild honeybees sometimes create their hives within caves, the same place the Oracle sought her prophecies. Chewing on bay laurel leaves, a plant that is equally practical and magical, the seer summoned answers to life's mysteries by sitting over cracks in the earth. From atop her three-legged stool (and possibly aided by hallucinogenic vapors weeping from the Below), the Oracle delivered guidance from the beyond.
Delphi was considered the center or 'navel' of the earth, symbolized by a hive-shaped relic found at the sanctuary.
Called an Omphalos, this statue is engraved with bee imagery and is sometimes shown resting by the Oracle's feet. Over time, Apollo adopted the Omphalos to express his authority over music and prophecy. But the Oracle remembers the truth: Before the solar god acquired the symbols of the Delphic Bees, the Goddess was in charge of the hive.
The Temple of Delphi was Apollo's sanctuary, but earlier, the land was part of Gaia's domain. It was in her night garden that three sisters and nymphs allegedly taught young Apollo how to read the future. Known as the Thriae, each woman had the face of a human and the body of a bee. They were winged and wise, older than time, and experts in Lithomancy (divination with stones). The Thriae also spoke the language of the birds – the bird being an ancient skin worn by the Goddess.
Just like tales of the moon, whisperings of bees hover around the stories of Apollo and oracles, the cults of Demeter and Persephone, and Dionysus and the Maenads.
The goddess Ariadne was known as the Queen Bee, and the huntress Artemis wore robes decorated with these buzzing beasts. Artemis's priestesses were Melissae or bees, and when the moon was new, her hive in the sky took the shape of her stinger – a crescent bow and arrow.
Today, as we stand beneath the third new moon of the year, we're casting a spell for the bees (welcome back friends), our hive in the sky, and a new season - spring, we're looking at you.
New Moon blessings, witches.
Oh yea, and one more thing…
Yesterday, Telling the Bees reached its third stretch goal! Now, in addition to bonus gold foil on the cover and custom end pages, your copy of Telling the Bees will include a satin ribbon bookmark! And do you know what will happen when we reach our fourth and final stretch goal? Gilded pages! There are only five days left to pledge a book or bundle via our Kickstarter - and thanks to the coven, we're nearly there!
What does it mean to tell the bees?
Many moons ago, magick was part of everyday life. Bees brewed honey and pollinated flowers, but they also worked as household psychopomps, fuzzy messengers that carried our stories between worlds.
Back then, bees were not mere insects but divine couriers, and upon reaching important milestones, families toasted their good fortune with the hive. The buzzing might go on for days (the bees loved any excuse for a party), but once the hoopla died down, a team of pollinators would set out for lands unseen and deliver meaningful news to spirits long gone.
Today, the ritual of telling the bees appears in animistic and magickal communities, and according to Little Witch, a happy hive is a fruitful spell, sweetening the boundaries of heart and home.
