On bees and honey: Introduction to bees, honey, their sacredness, and as offerings. (1/3)
Ello everyone! This is a series I’ve been meaning to do for awhile - about bees! You’d be surprised about how much this topic has. I’ve planned three parts, but there’ll probably be more because of the sheer about of information and nuance the bees have. This first part is about the basic information: an introduction to bees.
Honey is one of the oldest recorded offerings we have, as shown by amphoras of honey being offered to Dionysus on Linear B tablets. Just from that, we can infer that it’s an extremely traditional offering to give to the theoi — but of course, there’s more. Bees and their labour are sacred, and are tied to so many of the theoi. Let’s start with part one out of three: on bees and honey itself.
Linear B tablets come from Mycenaean Greece, and are extremely old. We’ve found many of the theoi’s names on the tablets themselves; and in particular I’ll use Dionysus as an example because he’s the one I have the most resources on.
In the tablets, Dionysus shipments of honey are sent to be offered to him. To exact, in one of the fragments tablets from pylos is translated as “to the sacrificial hearth of Dionysos.” In another tablet from Chania, two amphoras of honey are sent to the sanctuary of Zeus, of which they shared.
On bees being ouranic, chthonic, and liminal.
In antiquity, bees were seen as Liminal creatures - for they could walk the lines of mortals and gods. They are tied to human life on earth as much as they are to the underworld, and death and rebirth of the soul. Though, the study notes that their first religious associations were with the dead (but obviously, it changed overtime.) They bridge gaps between multiple forces, owing to their liminal nature.
Honey being offered to the dead is even found within the Iliad: Achilles leans a jar filled with honey on Patroclus’ bier. Offerings to the dead and underworld gods are numerous, including Hekate and Eumenides. Honey was often included in funerary rites even after the times of Homer.
As stated before, bees are also associated with the human soul - including the death and rebirth of the soul. Souls in the underworld are compared to buzzing bees across multiple works, and of which bees are tied to fertility - and are even tied to the life that we enjoy. Most of all though, the bees in the underworld are looking to be reborn within the passages. Bees are seen as a joyous creature even in antiquity, who give us pleasures within life. They formulate life into death.
Most of all: honey doesn’t really quite go away. The Liminal state is captured within honey’s preserving qualities, as honey doesn’t rot, and can last for forever. Their role in myth - such as Melissa’s - shows the bees with a role with life and death.
And lastly, the bees’ proximity to plant life and flowers ties them to the earth’s fertility, which we know to be certain in the modern day.
This is a short section, so let’s go: bees act as a messenger between a nymph and her potential lover in myth, and parallel’s Eros’s sweetness and anger.
On bees, honey, prophecy & poetry
Poets and the likes, Zeus and the sons of Zeus, were all described as being feed honey. Multiple poets talk about being fed honey in their youth, strengthening this connection. The sweetness of honey becomes the sweetness of songs and poems, of which the poets create. Albeit rarely - you might hear someone be called honey-tongued to this very day.
It gets more interesting when bees in antiquity were shown to be tied to a sort of prophecy, as they could be omens: the examples the study used were the death of an emperor and the rebirth of the soul. Even the Pythia herself was described as the “Delphic bee.” By poetry, prophecy, and divination - Apollon, the muses, and Delphi especially - Honey was considered to be tied to all of those matters.
Honey as an Offering & my rambling
Honey has offered to theoi for thousands of years, why stop now? It’s an excellent offering for well, really, any god or nymph. It’s one of the most recon offerings you could get. Plus, it won’t spoil and it won’t destroy the environment.
There’s even multiple types of honey that could get specific to the god, nymph, hero or the dead that you’re wanting to offer to. Honey can be made in many ways, in many colours, and with a variety of materials. As an offering, honey will absolutely work anytime.
In my experience, honeycomb works even better. You can even eat the honeycomb itself. Honeycomb as an offering has a special place in my heart - after I became a hellenic polytheist, that was my first ever offering to Dionysus. I got to support my local farmers and offer something that I didn’t even know was the perfect offering.
So, if you really don’t know what to offer, honey is the go-to choice. And buy local! Supporting your local farmers is best.
In short, bees and their honey, are incredibly sacred.
Carlson, R. D. (2015). The honey bee and apian imagery. Seattle, WA: University of Washington.
Cook, A. (1895). The Bee in Greek Mythology. The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 15, 1-24. doi:10.2307/624058
Jáuregui, M. H., Hernández, R. M., Pajares, A. B., & Isabel, J. S. (2013). Dionysos in the Mycenaean World. In Redefining Dionysos (pp. 23-37). De Gruyter.
