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It links bees to reverence, pollination, “giver of life” imagery, and life-cycle themes such as birth, death, and reincarnation. Using Egyptian, Indian, Islamic, and ancient European/Cretan materials, it explains bee-related metaphors for immortality, healing, kingship, inspiration, and ritual power, including references to honey, mead, and sacred rites.",{"@graph":69,"@context":123},[70,84,106],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":45,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/religion-spirituality/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/sacred-bees-some-cultural-mythic-and-symbolic-considerations/292040/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/sacred-bees-some-cultural-mythic-and-symbolic-considerations/292040.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Anda","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-16","2026-09-17",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":105},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",13,{"@type":107,"mainEntity":108},"FAQPage",[109,115,119],{"name":110,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":112},"How does the document describe the earliest cultural view of bees and honey?","Question",{"text":113,"@type":114},"Bees and honey are portrayed as objects of reverence used for religious and magical purposes, with honey treated as a “giver of life.” The text also connects “honey hunting” traditions to ancient rock paintings and deep antiquity.","Answer",{"name":116,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":117},"What roles do bees play in Egyptian religious symbolism?",{"text":118,"@type":114},"The document links bees to royalty, the afterlife, and sacred rites, including preservation in honey, tributes, and the idea that souls’ voices resemble bee humming. It also describes the ka-soul/double as imagined as a bee and presents Ra’s tears turning into golden bees that provide honey, wax, and pollination.",{"name":120,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":121},"How does the text connect honey and bees to healing and spiritual power in other traditions?",{"text":122,"@type":114},"It states that in Islam the honey produced by bees is valued for healing—restoring sight, maintaining health, and even bringing the dead back to life. It also presents honey as a life-substance and source of inspiration in Indian contexts, with bees serving as divine symbols.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":125,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":127,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":129,"site_id":62},292040,1790020697,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":132},{"doc_id":129,"user_id":133,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":134,"doc_module":4,"category_id":44,"category_name":45,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":135,"file_id":136,"file_url":137,"file_type":138,"file_size":139,"view_count":105,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":140,"language":141,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":142,"faqs":143,"seo_title":144,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":145,"read_time":146},962075006959,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/e0002397efbe92a78e?_k=1776741047341049297","SACRED BEES: Some Cultural, Mythic, and Symbolic Considerations Veronica Goodchild, PhD  \nMarch 2018  \n(Golden double bee pendant from Malia, Crete, Heraklion Archaeological Museum)  \nFrom earliest times bees have been approached with reverence and awe, and used for religious and magical purposes. Bees are the great pollinators. Honey was the earliest sweetener and a fermented drink could be made from it-mead. Honey, like water, was seen as a “giver of life”and necessary to existence. “Honey hunting or gathering” can be seen in rock paintings in Spain and south-west France going back 15,000 years or more. Bees were mysterious and associated with birth, death, and reincarnation in folktales and myths from many different cultures around the world. They are associated with the Great Mother Goddess and with bull worship which was also dedicated to the Great Mother. The ritual of “Telling the bees” stories of their owner’s family has been a long held custom which suggests bees were approached as having supernatural powers and early on were associated with oracular and other ritual traditions.  \nIn Egypt, the bee hieroglyph was first used as a symbol of royalty to denote the King of Lower Egypt when Upper and Lower Egypt were united under one ruler (3,500 BC) . Beekeeping, seasonal hive-moving, medicinal uses of honey, and magical uses of beeswax as well as beeswax in mummification and as a seal on coffins, were used on a large scale in Egypt which, in the Old Testament, is described as a “land flowing with milk and honey”(Numbers 16:13) . The dead were also sometimes preserved in honey, and honey was given as tribute as well as used in sacred rites. Honey and honey cakes were fed to sacred animals-bull, goat, lion, and crocodile. Honey was used in the posthumous “Opening of the Mouth” ceremony to allow for the dead to be fed in the other world, and the ka-soul or double was imagined as a bee as well as a bird. The voices of souls were compared to the humming of bees. Bees were also considered sourced from water and, like Ra the sun god who caused the Nile to flood fertilizing the soil for new crops, one of the great “Givers of Life.”When Ra wept and his tears fell to the ground, they became golden bees who produced their gifts of honey, wax, and pollination.  \n(Bees and ankh from ?Luxor, photo by Veronica Goodchild)  \nThe bees flanking an ankh in the photo above seems especially to address the fact that bees, like the ankh symbol itself, point to the ‘key’ of knowledge of the mysteries and hidden wisdom that leads to immortality. Maat, goddess of truth and justice, holds the ankh, as does Sekhmet, who as goddess ofwar is, paradoxically, also an initiatory healer. Composed of the symbols of Osiris and Isis, the ankh is a union of male and female creative principles, heaven and earth, and bees were thought to be messengers ofthe gods traveling between upper and lower worlds. Some have suggested that the ankh points to womb symbolism and the possibilities of a transformational path through death to rebirth. The ancient European lineage of bee shamanism-The Path of Pollen-is deeply inspired by the wisdom of the womb as the seat of oracular knowing.  \nHoney as a symbol of love was also evoked in Egyptian poetry as the following example from Love Songs of the New Kingdom (John L. Foster, 1992) shows:  \nYour love has penetrated all within me  \nLike honey plunged into water,  \nLike an odor which penetrates spices.  \nWhen her little sycamore begins to speak  \nThe murmur ofits leaves  \nDrips honey in the ear  \nIts fragrant words taste sweet  \nHer own hand, as soft and delicate as lotus.  \nIn India, the Rig-Veda contains many references to bees and honey. Hilda Ransome in The Sacred Bee writes,“The gods Vishnu, Krishna, and Indra were called “Madhava,” or the nectar-born ones, and their symbol is the bee. Vishnu is represented as a blue bee, resting on a  \nlotus flower. The lotus-flower is an ancient symbol of life, of resurrection, of Nature","cbCairPYtv2kcVh1","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCairPYtv2kcVh1","pdf",10940647,11,"English","# Overview of Sacred Bees\n## Life-giving honey and early cultural reverence\n## Bees as symbols in myths and rituals across civilizations\n## Honey, healing, inspiration, and immortality themes","[{\"question\":\"How does the document describe the earliest cultural view of bees and honey?\",\"answer\":\"Bees and honey are portrayed as objects of reverence used for religious and magical purposes, with honey treated as a “giver of life.” The text also connects “honey hunting” traditions to ancient rock paintings and deep antiquity.\"},{\"question\":\"What roles do bees play in Egyptian religious symbolism?\",\"answer\":\"The document links bees to royalty, the afterlife, and sacred rites, including preservation in honey, tributes, and the idea that souls’ voices resemble bee humming. It also describes the ka-soul/double as imagined as a bee and presents Ra’s tears turning into golden bees that provide honey, wax, and pollination.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the text connect honey and bees to healing and spiritual power in other traditions?\",\"answer\":\"It states that in Islam the honey produced by bees is valued for healing—restoring sight, maintaining health, and even bringing the dead back to life. It also presents honey as a life-substance and source of inspiration in Indian contexts, with bees serving as divine symbols.\"}]","SACRED BEES: Some Cultural, Mythic, and Symbolic Considerations | PDF",1789647717,28]