Bees, hives and honey etc: symbolism, significance and refer

More bees and celebrities

This looks like an avenue that is worth exploring.

For starters:

We have Peaches Honeyblossom Geldof.

Avacyn started a thread about Taylor Momsen a while back. In it he says that she played the part of Honey Bee Swan in a film called The Prophet’s Game.

She also played an aspiring Queen Bee character in the TV series Gossip Girl. She even wore a yellow dress, as do some royals in the Sussex thread:

Bees and the Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama is fond of bees and honey:

“When I consider the lack of cooperation in human society, I can only conclude that it stems from ignorance of our interdependent nature. I am often moved by the example of small insects, such as bees. The laws of nature dictate that bees work together in order to survive. As a result, they possess an instinctive sense of social responsibility. They have no constitution, laws, police, religion or moral training, but because of their nature they labour faithfully together. Occasionally they may fight, but in general the whole colony survives on the basis of cooperation. Human beings, on the other hand, have constitutions, vast legal systems and police forces; we have religion, remarkable intelligence and a heart with great capacity to love. But despite our many extraordinary qualities, in actual practice we lag behind those small insects; in some ways, I feel we are poorer than the bees.”

www.dalailama.com/messages/world-peace/the-medicine-of-altruism

“His Holiness immediately introduced his theme: the importance of love and compassion at every level of human existence. Comparing human beings to bees, for which he admitted a particular curiosity on account of his predilection for honey, he concluded how much poorer were the humans, in their lack of social responsibility and in their attitude towards their fellow human beings.”

www.shambhala.com/snowlion_articles/h-h-the-dalai-lama-dzogchen-teachings-padmasambhava-empowermentfor-world-peace/

“The Dalai Lama continues to proclaim his reincarnation is a ‘purely religious matter’ and something only he can decide, but he has no way to compel admiration from the faithful.

'He's been proclaiming he'll reincarnate as a foreigner, as a bee, as a ‘mischievous blond girl’, or even proposing a living reincarnation or an end to reincarnation.”

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3512583/High-ranking-Chinese-official-says-Dalai-Lama-making-fool-Buddhism-suggested-reincarnated-bee-mischievous-blond-girl.html

Below is a short clip from the episode:

Giant bee sculpture at the Eden Project in Cornwall

They sell many bee-related products in their shop too.

The Bavarian Bee Museum

Bavaria is getting into many threads, and by coincidence there is a museum dedicated to bees in a castle there:

“The Bavarian Bee Museum is housed in the historic rooms of the Vöhlin chateau in Illertissen. Alongside living bees, there is an extensive range of exhibits on beekeeping.”

www.bavaria.by/experiences/city-country-culture/museums-galleries/bayerisches-bienenmuseum-illertissen/

Bees in Jupiter Ascending

“In the film Jupiter Ascending, you have the protaganist finding out she is the queen of Earth. ”

Avacyn the film was shown on Freeview for the first time yesterday. I think it is best seen in a cinema for the special effects.

Sean Bean as Stinger, a human who is part bee, was good, and I did like the Bee Queen scene. They are genetically designed to recognise royalty:

Red Dwarf honey bee

I came across some unusual bees while looking for references to the Red Dwarf TV programme.

They are a wild species that is found in southern Asia.

At first sight they looked to me like mint humbugs in sweet wrappers!

This is very interesting.

I am not afraid of bees myself.

Night attack by bees

I too like mediaeval illustrations very much. This one is from the 14th century:

Two big bees for Sarah Ferguson

As mentioned above, bees are part of the Ferguson family crest, and Sarah Ferguson had bees embroidered on her wedding dress.

She had two big embroidered ones on her lapels when reading one of her stories recently:

Ted Hughes, Otto Plath and The Bee God

The poet Ted Hughes wrote a poem called The Bee God.

It contains references to his wife Sylvia Plath’s beekeeping, which could have been an attempt to get closer to her father Otto Plath, who died when she was eight years old:

“When you wanted bees I never dreamed
It meant your Daddy had come up out of the well.”

Otto Plath had bee connections:

“Sylvia’s father, Otto Plath, had been an authority on bumble bees. His book, Bumblebees and Their Ways (1934) is still highly regarded today. As a boy in Germany, he had been nicknamed Beinen-Konig (king of the bees) and when he emigrated to the United States, he became a professor of entomology at Boston University. His death when Sylvia was only eight years old deeply affected her feelings and thoughts for the rest of her life. Her mother writes that, when she was told of her father’s death, she said: “I’ll never speak to God again!””

dublinbees.org/members-area/sylvia-plath-and-the-bees/

I haven't seen a bee for ages. I wonder what effects the lockdowns are having.

Bus stops for bees

Bus shelter roofs are being turned into miniature gardens for the benefit of butterflies and bees in several places in the UK.

While 30 of the bus stop gardens have been installed in Leicester since 2021, there are none in London so far.

This living roof is in Cardiff:



www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/24/bus-shelter-roofs-turned-into-gardens-for-bees-butterflies-aoe