Bees
/There’s been a lot of buzz around bees, especially in folklore and mythology! From Ancient Egypt and Greece to Hinduism and Celtic folklore, the relationship between bees and humans has been considered divine - so we’re talking about the good friends, the bees!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of insects, injury, child endangerment, cannibalism, death, dismemberment, animal attacks, and sex.
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- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
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About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
[theme]
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a buzzy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn something about bees and a new story from around the world. I'm so excited about this episode. I can't stop talking. It's bees!
JULIA: It's bees. That's Amanda. I'm Julia. And we're talking about bees this week.
AMANDA: Hooray. Now, Julia, famously, you know that as a child, my imaginary friend was not like a dragon or like another child or anything. No, it was an anthropomorphic bee named Buzzer Bee.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: So I have never been so excited for an episode.
JULIA: Well, Amanda, like I think we've been on a little bit of a gardening kick and theme these past few months. A lot of it is because you and I have both been spending a lot of time getting our gardens ready. And now, we're, like, putting plants outside. We're starting to see things flower and everything. So I'm paying a lot more attention to the pollinators in my backyard, right? And it makes sense that we have to pay attention to the pollinators, because we really couldn't grow half the things that we grow if it wasn't for the pollinators, shoutout.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Humans have had, like, a very interesting relationship with pollinators, especially bees, for literally millennia. Plural, millennia.
AMANDA: It makes me so happy. My Hebrew name means bees. I have a bee tattoo on my back, which you came with me to get when I finished college. I could not be more into bees and their lore, and I'm so excited to learn.
JULIA: Also, an aside, Amanda, I recently found out, you know how we often say, like, "All bugs are good, except for mosquitoes, because mosquitoes suck." Right?
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Literally. Mosquitoes are also pollinators.
AMANDA: Oh, shit. It's like meeting someone who is gay but also a jerk, and you're like, "Oh, all right. Well—"
JULIA: It's really that onion article of worst person you know makes a good point. That's what— how I feel about mosquitoes being pollinators.
AMANDA: Maybe if I offer my mosquitoes enough delicious flowers, they won't come up for my delicious blood.
JULIA: Hmm. Interesting.
AMANDA: Entomologists, have you tried?
JULIA: Let's find out. You write in, entomologists, you let us know. But we're not talking about mosquitoes, we are talking about bees this episode. And the relationship between humans and bees has always been quite interesting. Beekeeping dates back before even ancient Egypt and ancient Greece, and has been a incredibly important part of cultures around the world for just as long. It shouldn't be any surprise to us that bees play an important role in both mythology and in folklore. So I've gathered up some of my favorite bee-related folk tales and stories with the help of researcher Sally, and I'm gonna tell you all about the bees.
AMANDA: I can't wait.
JULIA: Just kind of touched on your special relationship with bees. Any other bee facts about you that you wanna share with the listeners?
AMANDA: I've never been stung by a bee.
JULIA: Wow.
AMANDA: And I think it's because I have a bee tattoo, which I got when I was, you know, 21 or so. My thesis in college was in part about homesteading and how marginalized people in the late 2000s were, using social media as a way to, like, learn and document also their relationship with the land. That sort of, like, ended up morphing into also the Trad Wife movement and preppers and, like, all kinds of social movements that I don't agree with. But what is very important to me is that you can find a lot of meaning in being a part of a whole.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And for me, getting a tattoo of a North American species a bumblebee, was really the meaning of that and the accomplishment what that project meant to me. And part of why I chose a bee specifically is because of the tradition of telling the bees. Is this one we're gonna touch on in the episode?
JULIA: That's gonna be the last one we touch upon, so keep that in mind as we go through the rest of the episode.
AMANDA: Let's put a little stinger in it.
JULIA: Boop.
AMANDA: And pin it to the board. Boop. Oh, sorry, bee died. And let's get on into our first tale.
JULIA: Absolutely. Let's start in ancient Egypt, Amanda, all the way back to 3500 BCE. So we have a surviving piece of papyrus that talks about the unification between Upper and Lower Egypt under a single ruler. And in this proclamation, it is written, "He hath united the two lands. He hath joined the reed with the bee."
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: So, if that doesn't kind of tell you how important bees were to at least half of ancient Egypt, and in this case, Lower Egypt, it is a great place for us to get started, right?
AMANDA: Let's go.
JULIA: So the ancient Egyptian were actually very serious about their beekeeping, and they actually established a lot of beekeeping practices that we still use to this day. So you can actually look and see hieroglyphics that show how bees were cared for, including smoking a hive, which is still a practice that is used by some beekeepers to this day.
AMANDA: Right on.
JULIA: You can also find hieroglyphics depicting them filling, pressing, and sealing jars of honey.
AMANDA: Julia, can you imagine just being a person in the ancient world, and, you know, the stuff you eat? You may have some spices and herbs that you can grow locally. You have some salt, but then you find honey, and you're like, "New taste unlocked." Like, wouldn't you also devote your entire life to the care and cultivation of bees who get that delicious, delicious, sticky stuff?
JULIA: I would consider it, for sure. Now, this is really interesting. We have hieroglyphics of all of these things, right, Amanda? Of taking care of these bees, of bees in general, of jarring honey and everything like that. So if we have hieroglyphics of these practices, it usually suggests one of two things, which are not mutually exclusive, since both can be true at the same time, right? Beekeeping was economically important or religiously important.
AMANDA: Cool.
JULIA: And in the case of honey and beekeeping, for the ancient Egyptians, it was both those things.
AMANDA: Hooray.
JULIA: So speaking, practically, honey was used as a sweetener in not just the noblest of households. This was not a luxury product, but it was used by all classes. So beeswax was also commonly used in a variety of products, like candles, for waterproofing clothing. It was used as a surface to write upon. And it also was incredibly important as a religious value, right? So honey was written into marriage laws. Literally, like, there— we have examples of marital contracts where it states, "This husband will provide for his wife 12 jars of honey a year."
AMANDA: Hell yeah. It's important. Gotta have some baselines.
JULIA: Gotta have your baseline, you know? That's— that shows that you can be a provider, right?
AMANDA: I go through about a jar of honey a month. That's about right.
JULIA: Yeah, that's about, right. That's not too bad. Now, magic in ancient Egypt was also done using beeswax figures, where they were crafted into a human form and then acted as a form of sympathetic magic, which is in the case— like usually when we talk about sympathetic magic, we're thinking of poppets. We're thinking of voodoo, et cetera. So, basically, if this beeswax figure was harmed, the victim it represented would feel that pain.
AMANDA: Somehow that scares me less than a, you know, stick or mud, or clay version of me that someone else is using to harm me.
JULIA: Also, beeswax is much more like malleable, I guess.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So I think that makes it interesting in that way. Because you could be like, "Yes, I bent that arm out of place, but I could just ease it right back."
AMANDA: Oh, see, I was thinking, "Oh, it looks so pretty." Smush.
JULIA: Oh, yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. Opposite feelings about that, for sure.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And as it was clear that bees kind of served an important role in both the magical and the mundane, it is not really surprising that they were associated with the gods.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: In Lower Egypt, in particular, the bee acted as a symbol of life, birth, death, and resurrection. It was even associated with the god Ra, who's our sun god that we've talked about many times in our it's "Denial isn't just a river in Egypt," series. And it was believed that the tears of Ra, when they fell to the desert Earth from the sky, hit the sand and became honey bees.
AMANDA: Aw.
JULIA: So bees as the tears of the king of the gods. It really shows you how highly the Egyptians held bees.
AMANDA: And a product of something divine, touching something mortal and mundane. Like, bees do seem like they come from another world. Like, what other creatures do we know that make such an incredible byproduct that are a arguably exception to veganism? That, you know, go around and like, yes, some of them can sting you, but only if you get too close. I just— I think bees are amazing.
JULIA: Yeah, I know that honey and beeswax are kind of a interesting split in the vegan culture.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Not the podcast to address that on. Moving on, we're going to shift over the Mediterranean to ancient Greece, and it is not surprising at all that the Greeks have several myths associated with bees. One of them starts with one of our foundational myths of the Greek canon, which is the birth of Zeus.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: Now, as you might recall, Zeus' father was eating all of his children—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —so his mother hid Zeus away in a cave. And we've told this story before on the podcast, but in many stories, we know that he is nourished by this goat named Amalthaea. But it's also said that he was fed honey by sacred bees who resided in the cave that he was being kept in. Also, don't feed honey to babies.
AMANDA: That's a thing that I've heard.
JULIA: I found out recently. You shouldn't do that, because it could give them basically a form of baby botulism.
AMANDA: No honey for the babes. I mean, maybe— oh, maybe Julia, when a baby gets old enough that you can feed them honey.
JULIA: After one years old.
AMANDA: Maybe we have a version of a like name day, 100-day, first birthday situation for the honey day.
JULIA: The tasting of the honey.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Ooh, I like that. Consider, parents, if your child is under one years old and you want to have a little celebration for the first birthday where they get to have honey for the first time, the tasting of the honey.
AMANDA: So cute.
JULIA: So while in some stories, it is bees that are feeding honey, sacred honey to Zeus. In later stories, they are transformed into nymphs. But these nymphs are known as the Melissai, the bee maidens, because Amanda, the name Melissa means bee.
AMANDA: Huge.
JULIA: Did you know that?
AMANDA: I did not know that. I know Devorah, aka Deborah, means bees.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: But good God, I didn't even know all the Melissas and Melissai out there. Right on.
JULIA: Recently, I saw someone make a post about the fact that Jason is an ancient Greek name, and they're like, "That doesn't make any sense, because Jason sounds like it was invented in 1987 in Florida." And I said, "You're not wrong, actually."
AMANDA: You're not wrong.
JULIA: So also, a fun fact for you, one of Zeus' epithets is Melissios, which is the bee-man.
AMANDA: Okay. I mean, again, Zeus and I have some beef. Zeus is a fuck boy. We know this. But—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —even fuck boys have good taste sometimes, and that's a tough lesson to learn.
JULIA: Also, in some stories, Melissa is a singular nymph, and in other stories, she is a priestess of either Artemis or Demeter. In one of those stories in which Melissa is a nymph, it is a story about how the gods were attempting to stop humans from eating flesh and wanted them to eat fruit instead.
AMANDA: So they said, "Put some honey on that thing. Nope, nope. Not the meat, the fruit."
JULIA: So this nymph, Melissa, was the first to discover the honeycomb that bees made, and as such, became the first to turn honey into wine, aka Mead.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: So she taught this process to the other nymphs, and this process eventually was taught to humans as well. In stories where she's a priestess, there is a particular story which is a little bit sad, where she is initiated into the mysteries of the goddess, Demeter. The rest of the women in town find out about that, and they're like, "Oh, my God, tell me what all the secrets of Demeter are." And she's like, "No, I can't tell you that. That's— those are the secrets. If you want to be initiated, you could do that yourself." And they said, "No!" And they lash out. They end up tearing her to pieces.
AMANDA: Oh, no.
JULIA: And Demeter is so enraged that one of her priestesses has been slain, that she sends a plague of bees to issue out of Melissa's body and stings the women to death.
AMANDA: That is a badass punishment. I'm not gonna lie to you. I kind of love it.
JULIA: There's at least a couple of stories where it's like, "And then that person was stung to death." And I'm like, "Yeah, that makes sense. That checks out."
AMANDA: Not a way I want to go, to be very clear, but kind of metal.
JULIA: But Melissa— it's just very funny to say, Melissa and Zeus—
AMANDA: It is.
JULIA: —were not the only ones that were associated with bees in ancient Greek culture. Of course, we have to talk about Dionysus.
AMANDA: We must.
JULIA: So Dionysus, although sometimes it is Apollo's son, Orestes, is credited for being the originator of beekeeping. So according to Ovid, Dionysus discovered the first natural, like, beehive in a hollow of a tree while he was out with his attendants, the satyrs. Now, they were making quite a ruckus in the woods, as they often do, typical Dionysus fashion, and the loud noise disrupted the bees who began to swarm around the source of the noise.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Now, Dionysus, being an interesting guy, intrigued by these little guys, gathered them up and then put them into the hollow of a tree that he found where they established their hive.
AMANDA: Nice.
JULIA: When he next came to visit the bees, he found that they had produced honey. He's like, "Oh, shit, that's really cool." So he tastes it. He loves it. He shares his findings with the satyrs, and the satyrs are fucking in love with it, too. And their leader, the god Silenus, was so enthralled by the flavor that he had to, like, discover where the honey could be found. He needed to get to the source of it, all right.
AMANDA: Why do we do that? As people? We're like, "Oh, I love this thing. I must own the means of production."
JULIA: Yeah. Well, this is like— as you might recall, Silenus was like a horny, old goat man god.
AMANDA: I can't forget a horny, old goat man when I meet him, Julia.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. There you go. So he follows the buzzing of the bees to the hive in the tree hollow, finds the honeycombs there. And he's like, "Ah, shit. I'm ready to go. I got this". However, when he attempts to take some for his own, the bees fly out. They sting him a bunch. He does not die from the stinging, but he calls out for help, and the satyrs and Dionysus hear his calls, come to his aid. The satyrs just kind of start laughing at him.
AMANDA: Valid.
JULIA: And then. Dionysus is like, "Okay, my little bees go back inside." And then he's like, first off, Silenus, bad idea. Don't do that again. And also, if you apply some mud to the stings, that'll help soothe the stings."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And he's like, "Okay. Thanks, Dionysus." And that's the end of the story.
AMANDA: I love how bees are fundamentally feminine in ancient Greek folklore, but taming them and using them for production was done by male gods. Just feels suitable.
JULIA: Bees also had some other associations with the ancient Greeks, besides their honey making abilities. The muses, for example, sometimes transformed into bees, as the gods are often want to do, right? In some stories, they put honey on the lips of those that they wished to bless. This happened to Pindar, who claimed that his singing career was because of the muses' honey, which is another phrase used in ancient Greek for the gift of song.
AMANDA: Cool.
JULIA: It was also associated with the gift of poetry. So in later carving statues of Homer and Sappho were often carved with bee or honey motifs.
AMANDA: So cool. Oh, my God, I just look up some examples. That's beautiful.
JULIA: But while the honeyed words of the muses were associated with the bees, so too was death. The ancient Greeks knowing that often, like, bees would live in clefts of rocks or in caves, associated them with the entrances to the Underworld and therefore, connected them with the souls of the dead. And I will say, Ancient Greece is not the only one that believed that the bees could travel between the realm of the living and the dead, or were a representation of a person's soul.
AMANDA: Very cool.
JULIA: The Celtic tradition says that bees are messengers who could travel between the mortal realm and the other world, and would be the ones that transported souls between the two places.
AMANDA: Lovely.
JULIA: Other tradition says that when the soul left the body, it did so in the form of a bee. And we'll talk about that, because that is a recurring theme in a lot of European folklore as well.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: But as such, they believed that bees carried a lot of wisdom and knowledge about many things, so much so that there is a existing Scottish saying that survives to this day, which is, "Ask the wild bee what the druid knew."
AMANDA: All right.
JULIA: So they're like, "The druids aren't around anymore, but the bees, the bees fucking remember."
AMANDA: Bees remember.
JULIA: In Irish tradition, Amanda, the clans created laws that protected bees and beekeepers from crimes like hive theft.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: And I cannot pronounce the Gaelic translation of this, but it translates to, "The bee judgments."
AMANDA: Hell yeah, dude.
JULIA: Hell yeah.
AMANDA: You best believe that the housing authority, that the community board, that the neighborhood beautification society, is going to make sure you do not—
JULIA: Damn right.
AMANDA: —steal someone else's hive.
JULIA: The goddess Brigid, who we've talked about in previous episodes as well, is associated with bees. It's one of her sacred creatures, and her hives are said to bring magical nectar from her sacred orchard in the other world. And we talked about Brigid in the context as well of, like, Brigid as the Celtic goddess, but also Brigid as a, "LoL, It's not pagan, it's fine," kind of Christianized versions in various different saint forms. So there is a Christianized version of Brigid known as Saint Gobnait, who used the bees to protect her Christian worshipers and used bees to help stop cattle thieves and used honey as a healing aid during the plague times.
AMANDA: Hell yeah, dude.
JULIA: Now, Amanda, there are plenty of other cultures that held bees in high regard, and I can't wait to tell you more about them. But first, we're gonna have to go grab our refill.
AMANDA: We'll bee right back.
[theme]
JULIA: Hey, it's Julia, and welcome to the refill. Thank you so much to our newest patrons, Alithia, Emilia, AllyM, Kait, and Sam. Thank you so much for spending a little bit of your hard-earned money supporting us here at Spirits. And hey, if you join the ranks of our patrons, you can get cool rewards like ad-free episodes, recipe cards for every single episode, bonus urban legends episodes, recommendation newsletters, and so much more. Check it out at patreon.com/spiritspodcast. You can also join the ranks of people like our supporting-producer level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Hannah, Lily, Matthew, Rikoelike, Scott, Wil and AE (Ah). And, of course, our legend-level patrons, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Michael, Morgan H., Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. Again, head over to patreon.com/spiritspodcast today to sign up or try out our seven-day free trial, patreon.com/spiritspodcast. I also want to tell you about another show here at the Multitude Collective, Attach your Résumé. Attach your Résumé is our new show from Multitude that interviews online creators about how their jobs work and how they got there. You can hear personal stories behind seismic events in digital media and learn what concrete steps we can take to build a sustainable media landscape. Hosted by longtime podcasters and business owners, Eric and Amanda, Attach your Résumé proves that the best credential for deciding the future of media is actually making stuff. Season two is out now, so subscribe to Attach your Résumé in your podcast app, wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. And listen, there is a lot of stigma around, particularly, men's mental health, and there is a certain strength that comes from maintaining a healthy mind. A lot of men today face immense pressure to perform, to provide, to keep things together, so it is no wonder that 6 million men in the US suffer from depression every year, and it's often undiagnosed. But hey, it is okay to struggle, because real strength comes from opening up about what you're carrying and doing something about it so that you can be your best self, for yourself and for everyone in your life. If you're feeling the weight of the world right now, talk to someone, talk to a friend, talk to a loved one, or talk to a therapist. BetterHelp is a great way to connect you to a therapist, if that is something that you are looking to try. And with over 35,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. And it works with a app store rating of 4.9 out of five based on over 1.7 million client reviews. It's convenient, too. You can join a session with a therapist at the click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life. Plus, you can switch therapists at any time. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Talk it out with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/spirits. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, .com/spirits. And now, let's get back to our show.
[theme]
JULIA: Amanda, we are back. And I've brought to you today a twist on a classic prohibition era cocktail.
AMANDA: Is that a Bee's Knees, Julia?
JULIA: Now, you know the Bee's Knees. The Bee's Knees is a gin, lemon juice and honey cocktail. I've also seen some people do a sparkling wine of some sort with that sometimes, like a Prosecco or whatever. I like it straight up, just gin, lemon, honey. For a little summer joshing, might I suggest instead of using regular honey, use a little hot honey in there?
AMANDA: Oh, very nice.
JULIA: Creating more of a bee sting than a Bee's Knees.
AMANDA: That's so cute. I can also imagine a bee balm where you garnish with a little bit of lavender, or if you fuck with it, maybe a bit of a lavender simple syrup.
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: That you do like the honey, and you reduce it down, maybe thin it out even with a bit of water and a little sprig of lavender. But I'm growing some right now, which the pollinators love, and specifically, the pollinator mosquitoes don't love.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: So I have a lot of lavender on my hands.
JULIA: Hmm. Time to make some syrup, baby.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: I love a little lavender syrup in my morning coffee, so highly recommend that as well.
AMANDA: You are built different, Julia, with your botanical and herbaceous flavors.
JULIA: I just love botanicals, man, you know?
AMANDA: Yum.
JULIA: I just love tasting— I almost said grass in my coffee, but you know what I mean?
AMANDA: I do, I do.
JULIA: I like the green.
AMANDA: You want it to taste green.
JULIA: Exactly, exactly. In the case of lavender, purple.
AMANDA: Ay.
JULIA: All right, let's continue with more of our bee folklore. This time, I want to head to the Kalahari Desert and the San people, who have the oldest surviving culture in all of Southern Africa.
AMANDA: Oh, shit.
JULIA: So they tell a story of how their people were born into the world. It's sort of their world origin story. And they tell a story about how the gods and all other living creatures existed in the sky, because the god Flame and his mate, Rain were one. Now, Flame created the Earth, and Rain carried a rainbow as a girdle around her waist. So when the Earth was created, it was covered in waters. There was no land on the Earth, which is honestly a common theme—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —in a lot of different origin stories of the Earth itself, right?
AMANDA: The primordial waters, baby.
JULIA: Yes, exactly. So Flame called upon his legendary hero, Mantis, to go down to the world that had been created and discover the purpose of life. And Mantis, being a legendary hero and also like a literal mantis, agreed, and he asked his companion Bee to be a guide and carry him down to the world. Because Mantis could not fly, but Bee could fly. Now, Bee carried Mantis over the dark and turbulent waters of the Earth, and they traveled together. But after many days of searching, Mantis fell asleep on the back of Bee, and Bee became wearier and colder as he attempted to find solid ground.
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: As Mantis slept, he became heavier and heavier, and Bee's burden became more and more. Now, Bee attempted to struggle bravely, but with each passing moment, he flew slower and sank closer to the waters.
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: But just before Bee completely ran out of energy, he spotted a great white flower half-opened, floating in the tumultuous waters of the world.
AMANDA: Let's go.
JULIA: The flower was clearly awaiting the sun's rays to open up but Bee landed on the flower. He laid Mantis in the heart of the flower and planted with him the seed for the first human being.
AMANDA: Oh, my God.
JULIA: Talk about pollinating.
AMANDA: That's so beautiful.
JULIA: And with that, his mission complete, Bee died.
AMANDA: I'm— hmm, I know it's so true of bees and many, many other creatures that it's like, you accomplish the goal.
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: Kaput. And it makes me a little bit laugh, but a little bit sad.
JULIA: Classic storytelling, though.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: You're like, "Oh, he finally did what he had to do, and now he can be at peace, be at rest."
AMANDA: Lay down his burden and passed on.
JULIA: So this is all very sad, of course. But the next morning, the sun rose, it warmed the flower, which bloomed fully. And as the flower opened its petals to the world, Mantis awoke as well. And from within Mantis, the seed that Bee left with him also awoke. And so from within Mantis, the first of the San was born.
AMANDA: That's amazing.
JULIA: Isn't that a beautiful origin story for your people?
AMANDA: You have water, flower, bees, bugs, everything that you need in order to pollinate life.
JULIA: Yeah. I love that. It's sweet and sad, which is, honestly, the best kind of combo for any sort of tale like that, right?
AMANDA: Absolutely.
JULIA: Now, Amanda, we're gonna swap over to talk about Hinduism, because in Hinduism, bees are seen as divine assistance to humans earthly life, with the goal of kind of keeping nature in balance and in harmony. As such, they are seen as symbols of the life cycle as well as rebirth. So, unsurprisingly, that means that they are also tied to eroticism, and love, and sex.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: So Indian philosopher, Adi Shankara, said, quote, "A flower without a bee is like a young woman in love without a lover."
AMANDA: Aw.
JULIA: Isn't that beautiful?
AMANDA: Just waiting, just waiting.
JULIA: Just waiting. And oftentimes, in a lot of Hindu writing and in Hindu poetry, we often see this imagery of bees being in love with flowers, which I think is kind of a beautiful metaphor to say, like, not only is, like, the thing that produces life a beautiful love story, it also perpetuates life itself.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. And also aren't flowers just— I mean, I know flowers are associated with romance in every culture, pretty much, but—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —can you imagine a better representation of the feeling that grows as if out of nowhere between people, than like a gorgeous flower poking its head out of the ground? Like, yes, yes, there's wisdom there.
JULIA: It's blooming. It seems—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: —magical in its own way. It's incredible.
AMANDA: From a little seed.
JULIA: There's also a lot of beautiful poetry about and I'm sure this is something you've experienced as well, Amanda, which is beautiful women being mistaken for flowers by bees.
AMANDA: Oh, yes. It happens to me, not to brag, a couple times a year that the hibiscus flowers on my arm will be mistaken by a ladybug or a butterfly, or a bee, my favorite, and they'll land on me and go sniff, sniff, "No, no," and then fly away.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And it makes me feel like a literal nymph.
JULIA: Yes. I— I've seen it happen, and it's honestly very impressive.
AMANDA: It's amazing.
JULIA: Also, the hum of bees is used by poets as a romantic sound inciting love.
AMANDA: Aw.
JULIA: And part of that reason is because bees are associated with spring, and therefore, are associated with Kama, who is the Hindu god of love. Honey bees form the arrow for Kama's bow that is made of sugar cane.
AMANDA: Whoa.
JULIA: Symbolizing that the arrows of love that he shoots are sweet, yet also painful.
AMANDA: I mean, yeah.
JULIA: Kama is said to have five flowery arrows, each of which triggers a different kind of desire, attraction, disturbance, burning, desiccation, and destruction.
AMANDA: Oh, baby.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: Now, if that isn't the life cycle of relationship, I don't know what is.
JULIA: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. You're right. You're right. The hum of Kama's bees was said to drive those yearning for absent or unwilling lovers to ruin.
AMANDA: Oh, no.
JULIA: And Kama is not the only Hindu god or goddess that is associated with bees. Bees are also associated with the gods Indra, Krishna and Vishnu, who collectively are called the Madhava, or born of honey.
AMANDA: Cool.
JULIA: However, there is a goddess who is an incarnation of the goddess Shakti named Bhramari. And she is the goddess of, specifically, black bees. But she's also associated with not just bees, but hornets and wasps as well.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And her name can be translated to, literally, like a bee.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: So in her tale, specifically the tale of where she originated from, she is seen to have been a destroyer of demons and the embodiment of the energy of the gods. So in her origin story, she was summoned by the gods to kill the demon Arunasura, who had been given the power of invulnerability by the god Brahma, who, because of this invulnerability, was said he could not be killed by men, women, two or four-legged animals or any kind of weapon.
AMANDA: Now, you just— you got to stop getting that specific with your invulnerability. Have we learned nothing—
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: —from Hinduism, from ancient Greece? You have to just say invulnerable, period. Because if you're saying shit—
JULIA: Period.
AMANDA: —like, you know, "I can only be killed by someone not woman born. Okay, all right. Loophole. Like, we're gonna, we're gonna get way too specific, and that person's gonna die."
JULIA: As a result, the gods summon this embodiment of Shakti, Bhramari, who transforms her body into innumerable black bees that sting the demon to death, which allow the rest of the gods to take back control of the heavens.
AMANDA: Incredible.
JULIA: And, of course, Amanda, we have a wide variety of bee folklore from Europe.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: There are many Germanic folk tales that say that the soul comes out of the body of a sleeping person in the form of a bee.
AMANDA: I have not heard this one before, but I think it's really interesting, because bees are— you can lose track of them easily. It's not like a bird where, like you see them landing, you see them taking off. You can follow them through the sky, like bees are so small, and you can lose track of them so easy. But also you can clearly see that that's a bee right there.
JULIA: This also really reminds me of the Italian Benandanti, which we've done an episode of Spirits on, oh, God, a while back now at this point. But this idea of, like, when you're sleeping a witch's soul can, like, leave her body in the form of an animal of some kind. I really like that idea. I really think that's really interesting. And to your point, Amanda, while it is really easy to lose sight of a bee, they're quite loud.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So it is kind of interesting to be like, "Ah, I can't see it, but I can hear it, so I know it is there in some form."
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Yes. It sure can. God knows. God knows I've had just, like, bumblebees, like, slam into me, and I'm like, "Excuse me. I'm right here."
AMANDA: Exactly. And if it needs to make itself known, it sure can.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Yeah. I hear them hit the window sometimes when I'm at my grandma's house, I'll be, like, sitting with her in her, like, sort of sunroom, which is, you know, a little bit of an extension of the house, lots of, you know, windows around, and they'll just go, "Bunk." And then I hear them continuing to fly along, which is how I know it's okay. It's much less scary than a bird hitting the window.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: But a much bigger sound than you would expect.
JULIA: Yeah, for sure. And it's also really funny when they just go like, "Bunk, bunk, bunk, bunk." Like, they just keep going against it. They'd be like—
AMANDA: They keep trying, yeah.
JULIA: —"There's gotta be an entrance somewhere."
AMANDA: Gotta be somewhere.
JULIA: They're very silly. Bees are really cute.
AMANDA: Oh, bees.
JULIA: In somewhat of a similar vein in Switzerland, and we kind of talked about this with the Celtic folklore as well, it is believed that the souls of men leave the world in the form of bees. Sometimes the bee soul will come back to the body and then it'll be reanimated.
AMANDA: Well, that's handy.
JULIA: It is. There is a story from the Swiss Alps in which a group of young men are on their way home just from rabble-rousing, I guess, and as they are walking down the road, they find the body of an old woman lying, they presume, dead on the path. And they're like, "Oh, shit. This woman is dead. That's not good." And so they decide to carry her to the nearest house until they can give her a proper burial. They're being good lads. Where— these lads, they're being good.
AMANDA: Good job, good lads.
JULIA: But as they lay the body out, a bee flies into the room and then straight into the woman's open mouth.
AMANDA: And she wakes up?
JULIA: And then everyone's shocked, when after a moment, the woman gets back up and then angrily tells them, "If you ever find me laying on the ground again, just leave me alone."
AMANDA: She's like, "I was taking a nap mid-walk, okay?"
JULIA: "I was napping."
AMANDA: "I was scouting ahead in my witch's familiar in the bee form."
JULIA: Yeah. "And then my bee soul couldn't find my body. Just leave it where you found it."
AMANDA: Damn. What a— that was an unexpected lesson, because I would imagine that taking care of the body is the right thing to do. But as usual, folklore teaches us that we don't know everything, most of the time.
JULIA: It's very similar to— I follow a great nature rescue and rehab center here on Long Island, Sweetbriar. If you want to check out their Instagram, it's really cute.
AMANDA: Aw.
JULIA: They have a very famous owl that lives there who's very, like, Instagram famous now. But they often tell you, you're like, "We're trying our best out here. We want to make sure that all the animals survive. If you find a deer, like a baby deer, just leave it be."
AMANDA: Leave them alone. They'll figure it out. They don't need you.
JULIA: "Call us before you touch anything." So much like leaving a baby deer be, as the nature preserve told me, if you find a woman's dead body in the middle of Switzerland, just leave it be, because her bee soul will be back any minute now, probably.
AMANDA: Yeah. Maybe sit with her for a spell, make sure she's okay. And then later on—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —when you get to your next stop, be like, "FYI." And then maybe somebody who lives there will be like, "That's just Melissa. She'll be fine."
JULIA: She'll be okay. There are some Slavic traditions around beekeeping that I think are worth mentioning. It is said that when a beekeeper takes honey, he must share some with his neighbors, because it is likely that the bees have taken the nectar from their neighbors flowers as well as his own flowers.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. That's just smart.
JULIA: That's just smart, you know? Like the bees don't recognize your plots of lands and your divides and your borders. They're bees.
AMANDA: The bees said, "Be a co-op. Be a co-op."
JULIA: "Share with your neighbors, create a community."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: It's also said that if a beekeeper does not share any of his honey, he will be cursed with a bad harvest next season.
AMANDA: There you go. As you should be. And what are you gonna do with that much honey? What are you gonna do with eight gallons of honey? Come on. Be so for real.
JULIA: I also think that's like a very practical statement as well, because you need a certain amount of, like, cross pollination with plants not from your area—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: —in order to have a successful crop. And so that totally logics out for me. Even from a folklore perspective, that seems like, you know, old wives' tale logic in the best possible way.
AMANDA: Hey, Julia, could people buy a hat that says Old Wives' Tale Teller if they so choose to maybe, like, I don't know, used to go admire bees or look at flowers, or maybe even harvest honey?
JULIA: Yeah. I would say they could go to spiritspodcast.com/merch, and buy that hat right now.
AMANDA: Ay.
JULIA: Unless it's sold out, which fingers crossed that it is.
AMANDA: It might be.
JULIA: It might be.
AMANDA: In which case, we can make— ooh, maybe we can do like a little— a bee colorway, like a mustard yellow or something.
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: But listen, only if you sell out the black and white hat.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: I can guarantee you, editor Bren is wearing it as they edit this episode right now. Bren, if that's true, give me a little buzz, buzz. Ay.
JULIA: All right. So also, Amanda, if you refuse to share honey with someone who is sick, because, as we know, there is a certain amount of truth to the fact that honey is antibacterial.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And so it was used in a lot of folk medicine, and it probably had at least some effect on— if not curing illness, at least soothing the symptoms of illness.
AMANDA: 100%. Good for the throat. Good for allergies.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And just like— it's not gonna hurt, y'all. It's probably better than the water you got. And if you're not washing your hands yet, because we didn't really come around to that, I bet your honey is more sterile than your hands.
JULIA: It's probably true. That is probably true. I will say also local honey, in particular, is very good with allergies, because you are, like, kind of slowly not poisoning yourself with the allergens.
AMANDA: You're micro-dosing.
JULIA: Yeah, you're micro-dosing allergens with that honey, and that's great. You should do that. But it only works with your local plants. And if you're getting honey from California and live in New York, that's not going to work as well as you think it is.
AMANDA: Go down that farmer's market and say, "Hi, fuck me up. I need to micro-dose some pollen." And they'll say, "Here's your honey, ma'am."
JULIA: They said, "I know what you mean. Here's a gallon of honey."
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: So if you refuse to give honey to someone who is sick, you will find that next season, your bees will be sick or they might leave their honeycombs empty.
AMANDA: Aw. Be nice, and the bees will be nice to you.
JULIA: Now, Amanda, say you're a— an Austrian beekeeper who is looking to buy your first hive.
AMANDA: I mean, very relatable situation. Yeah.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm. Don't pay with just money. You have to give some sort of gift in some way.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: This is very similar to the plant folklore that we were talking about, our gardening folklore—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —about how, like, never thank someone for the plant, but rather, like, give a gift in exchange. You know?
AMANDA: You're so right.
JULIA: When bees are inherited or received as a gift, they thrive best. And also keep your fucking house in order if you want to keep bees.
AMANDA: Make sure your Tomta is taken care of and make sure your bees are compensated.
JULIA: Yeah. And, you know, bees will not thrive if a family is always fighting, or if any of the family members are lying to each other.
AMANDA: Oh. We open the hive one day, we turn to our left, we turn to our right, we say, "David, I knew it."
JULIA: "I knew you were lying to me this whole time."
AMANDA: But the bees as, like, an extension of your ecosystem makes all the sense in the world to me. Just like you're saying with the neighborhood, like bees don't respect property lines and fences, so of course, you should also share the wealth of that harvest with your neighbors. And bees respond to vibes, like bees respond to the environment, and they're not going to make sweet honey from a situation where people are suffering. And I think that that is a really, like, lovely lesson to keep in mind.
JULIA: It's almost like bees are a incredible metaphor for community.
AMANDA: I mean, that's why I have a gigantic bee tattoo on my back, so—
JULIA: Ha-ha. Well, Amanda, that transitions us so beautifully into our final portion of this episode, which is the telling of the bees. For people who don't know, this is a folklore tradition that seems to span through several different areas of Europe and now in the United States as a extension of that, which is a tradition where the beekeeper treats their bees as extended members of their own family and keeps them informed of any family news in the household, whether that be marriages, new births, and especially important to a lot of the folklore, deaths.
AMANDA: Yeah. You go out to the bees and you keep them informed as to what's going on. You tell them the news. You make sure that they know what's happening. And to me, this is like the ultimate act of respect for bees as productive housemates. Like, you—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: You know, beekeeping, there's a lot of art and science to it, but fundamentally, you're just kind of making sure the bees have what they need to do their thing.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Which is also how it can feel when you're working in concert with your environment to raise other livestock or raise other crops. But bees are almost like the— beekeeping is like the— can be the easiest way, because you're simply saying, like, "Gonna keep your house safe, make sure you have plenty to sample from, and we're gonna share what you make at the end of it." And so I just think that that's a— it's just common sense, it's just good manners. This is one of the folklore that the minute I heard it, I thought, "Oh, of course."
JULIA: Yes. I think it is really rather beautiful. And, like, the amount of detail that goes into it, too, is really interesting. So an occasion like a marriage, or a birth, or a death that you would tell the bees about, it was usually marked by decorating the hive and then, quite literally, telling the bees the news. Beekeepers were encouraged, or are encouraged, to speak to their bees in calm voices and never to use harsh words, for fear of upsetting their family members, the bees.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: In Scotland, in Germany, and in Switzerland, it is said that when the head of the house dies, the eldest male member of the family had to go to the hive, knock three times, and tell the bees some variation of, "Little bee, thy master is dead. Leave me not in my sorrow."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: And part of that was because of a fear that if no one told the bees what was going on and then asked them to stay, they might fly away to seek their master. Because, again, remember, these areas are ones that are like bees are souls—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —so what if they follow the bee soul of their former beekeeper?
AMANDA: We're going to the other world. Yeah.
JULIA: Literally, literally.
AMANDA: Makes sense.
JULIA: And that is also why there is a very specific ritual around the death of a beekeeper and/or the introduction of a hive to their new keeper. Doesn't always necessarily have to be the death of a keeper—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —but rather, just like introducing the hive to a new keeper. There's also, like, a— I think it was a Scottish superstition, where it was kind of hit or miss buying bees from a dead person.
AMANDA: Ah.
JULIA: Like, buying bees from a dead man's estate.
AMANDA: Right.
JULIA: Because they're like, "It's 50.50, whether those bees are gonna try to follow that guy into the other world or not."
AMANDA: I love that they're like, "Gonna be honest with you, you can pay me. I can't guarantee what's gonna happen here."
JULIA: Yeah, we don't know. So that's why a lot of places establish this ritual of introducing the new keeper to the hive.
AMANDA: Aw.
JULIA: So the new beekeeper must introduce themselves formally as the new owner, and then also ask for the hives acceptance of that role.
AMANDA: It's just good manners. It's just— it just makes sense. And I— I'm really struck too, Julia, that in English, we say beekeeping because you don't own the bees. You're not the master of the bees.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: You're not the dad or the mom or the parent of the bees.
JULIA: The bees can leave any time.
AMANDA: You're keeping them, if they want to be kept. And if they're okay with being there. If you provide a hospitable house, if you're nice to them, if you tell them what's going on, they'll share their stuff with you at the end of a season. You keep them, but not forever. And isn't that a metaphor?
JULIA: Exactly. So if you were to improperly do this ritual, or not do it at all, it is said that this would encourage the bees to desert the hive, or the colony would just straight up stop producing honey, or even would die off.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: The telling of the bees is something that is still practiced to this day. You could probably talk to a beekeeper, and they at least have heard of this ritual. But for example, when Queen Elizabeth passed away last year? Was that last year?
AMANDA: Uh?
JULIA: Or two years ago? I'm not sure. When Queen Elizabeth passed away, the newspapers ran a story about how the royal beekeeper told the bees kept on the grounds of Buckingham Palace that their Mistress had passed and each hive was decorated with a black bow.
AMANDA: Someone must have told the Pope's bees too, because the Vatican has bees.
JULIA: Oh, yeah. Oh, no. Now, I'm sad.
AMANDA: I'm sorry, bees of the Papa Francisco.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Leo is your new daddy now.
JULIA: Leo's your new daddy now. I bet the bees loved Francis, though. Just for his name's sake, you know?
AMANDA: Vibes.
JULIA: Vibes. So Amanda, bees and our relationship with them as humans has been so important for so very long, and I feel like I've only scratched the surface of where bees fall into our folklore and our traditions. Like, I could probably do a whole episode solely on, like, not just bees, but honey.
AMANDA: Ooh, yeah.
JULIA: And the way it's used in, like, folk medicine and as symbolism in mythology. But, Amanda, I hope you and I hope the ConSpiriters who are listening to this episode, are left buzzing with excitement after this episode.
AMANDA: Well, Julia, thank you so much for doing an ep around one of my very, very favorite creatures in the world. And next time, you see a bee floating on by and think, "What's Up, Melissa?" Remember—
JULIA: Stay creepy.
AMANDA: —stay cool.
JULIA: Later, satyrs.
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