Catholic Faith Corner

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Sea of Galilee at Sunrise

Catholic Faith Corner

Living in the Light
of Jesus Christ

Bees, Hives, and Honey

A beekeeper recently gave me a jar of honey. I can see why honey is called liquid gold. It’s beautiful as it streams down from a spoon, and it wonderfully satisfies my sweet tooth. This gift made me curious about bees, so I googled them. Today I share with you some things I learned.

  1. There are more than 20,000 species of bees.
  2. A hive can hold 20,000 drones.
  3. Worker bees are all female, but only the queen bee can mate and reproduce.
  4. Female honeybees have baskets on their hind legs to collect pollen.
  5. Only the female worker bees have stingers, so they protect the hive, not the drones.
  6. Bees have five eyes: two large ones and three small ones in between them.
  7. A queen honeybee can lay over 2,000 eggs in a day.
  8. After mating with the queen, the drone dies.
  9. Bees have combs on their forelimbs to clean their antennae.
  10. Bees sleep when they are tired.
  11. Bees can only sting once and then die; wasps can sting many times.
  12. When a hive divides, the new queen and followers “swarm” and look for a home.

A swarm of bees

Bees in History

  1. Beekeeping has been practiced at least since the times of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece.
  2. In Egyptian mythology, bees grew from the tears of the sun god Ra when they landed on the desert sand.
  3. The honeybee was the royal symbol for pharaohs from 3000 BC and 350 BC.
  4. As a baby, Zeus was fed milk and honey.
  5. A custom was to “tell the bees” when someone died. After Queen Elizabeth II died, the royal beekeeper informed the bees of Buckingham Palace and Clarence House. He explained, “You knock on each hive and say, ‘The mistress is dead, but don’t you go. Your master will be a good master to you.’ “

Catholic Symbolism

Bees became a symbol for Our Lady because of their diligence and good work. They also symbolized her virginity because the worker bees don’t reproduce.

Providentially, World Bee Day is May 20. May is Mary’s month.

Because honey is sweet, it became a symbol for St. Ambrose and St. Bernard of Clairvaux, whose words were as sweet as honey.

According to a legend, during the conclave for Pope Urban VIII, a swarm of bees flew into the Vatican seen as a divine sign. He made the bee his personal emblem.

The Paschal Candle and other candles used in the liturgy must be at least 51% beeswax. This is because wax produced by the honeybee is considered the sweetest and purist, the most appropriate for symbolizing the humanity of Jesus.

(My mother would use only beeswax when she decorated Easter eggs.)

Hexagonal cells in a honeycomb are made from wax secreted and chewed by the bees. The cells are for storing honey and for baby bees to develop.

Why “Busy as a Bee”?

Bees in a hive do the same task all day long. Worker bees my fly maybe ten miles a day as they gather pollen and nectar and bring it to the hive over and over. A bee can visit more than two million flowers to gather enough nectar to make one pound of honey.

My Sad Encounter with Bees

My dad hung a tire from the large tree on our land in the country so we kids could swing. This swing was not always fun. One afternoon it was like the Trojan Horse. We were taking turns being pushed on the swing, blissfully unaware of the ruckus this would cause. Our joy ended abruptly. My brother, who was four or five, stood screaming with his fist clenched. When he uncurled it, inside lay a black and yellow bee.

Suddenly, all of us were yelling, jumping, running around the yard, and rolling on the ground as if performing a wild dance. My father rolled up newspaper and began swatting us with it. Little did we know that the tire was suspended over an underground nest of bees. They viewed our stamping back and forth on it as an attack. As we pushed each other on the swing, the bees had stealthily crawled up inside our pant legs and then stung.

We swiftly packed up and went home. Dad was stung next to his eye. I suffered the most wounds—six of them. We won the battle of the bees though, with the help of an ally. Mike, an elderly neighbor, poured kerosene into the nest and burned them out.

Warning:  Do not kill bees. We need them to pollinate and so provide our fruit, vegetables, and nuts!

The video below contains more interesting information about bees. Although it is meant for children, it is worthwhile for adults too.

What has been your experience with bees?

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