BEE

Bees represent productivity and the importance of group energy but they can also indicate frantic internal chatter. The noise and sting of bees can represent a cycle of worry and conflict. To see bees in your dream symbolizes good luck as a group, but weakness as an individual; dreams of bees are common when you are going through an experience that is laden with social expectations, such as a wedding. Bees, like ants, are symbolic of work and industry, as suggested by the phrase‘busy as a bee’. To dream that you are stung by a bee signifies unexpected misfortune; you may be unaware of trouble brewing around you. It can also indicate acting to fend off those who are trying to hinder your progress. Being attacked by a swarm of bees suggests that you may be creating a situation that has become uncontrollable and that you need to find ways of calming your inner chatter.

To dream of bees making honey offers the encouraging prospect of potential happiness and success in waking life. The sweetness of honey has long been identified with visions of happiness and well-being; in classical myth, honey was the food of the gods, and milk and honey flows in the Promised Land of the Old Testament. However, to kill or injure a bee in your dream indicates the loss of something important to you. To dream of a queen bee refers to your need to feel, or be, superior in some way; it might also mean that at some level you are aware of the need for hard work and industry. Spiritually, the bee symbolizes immortality, rebirth and order.

(see Honey, bisects)

Stinging you: An unpleasant experience that literally left a “stinger” behind, often of an emotional nature.

At the hive: Community and socialization; knowing your place and function within a specific group; harmonious teamwork.

Flying from flower to flower: Gathering life’s nectar, enjoying sweetness wherever it may be found. Alternatively, a fickle nature.

Buzzing: A message; the ancients felt that bees carried missives direct from the gods themselves.

The priestesses of Delphi were called “Melissae,” which means bees, and they were often given honey cakes as an offering in payment for their visionary talents.

Hornet s nest: Trouble just waiting to happen. Don’t aggravate this situation or you will get stung.

In China, dreaming of a bee swarm is a lucky omen.

A ghostly visitor. Both Pliny and Aristotle believed that good souls could reincarnate as a bee.

The spirit of the Muse. In Greece, eloquent people were believed to have been touched on the lips by the Birds of the Muses (bees), including Sophocles, Plato, and Virgil.

Flying down a chimney—omen of death of figurative or literal nature.

In medieval Bestiaries, an emblem of honor.

In the Koran, the symbol of faithfulness, intelligence, and wisdom.

Folkloric: A portent of forthcoming profits, especially in your trade.

Queen bees represent the ancient Mother Goddess, and as such can symbolize your own mother, your maternal instincts, or your feminine nature.

”A dream both good and bad. Good if the bees sting not, bad if they sting. Bees flying about the ears signify harassment by enemies, but to beat them off without being stung signifies victory over foes. Seeing bees profit to country people and trouble to the rich.

To dream that they make their honey in the house signifies dignity, eloquence and success to the occupants.

To be stung by a bee denotes vexation and trouble.

To take bees augurs profit.

A dream of bees is auspicious to plowmen and to thosei profiting from this industry, to others this dream signifies trouble by reason of the noise bees make, wounds by reason of their sting, and sickness by reason of their honey and wax. Jupiter is said to have been nourished by bees, and in his infancy Pindar was supposedly fed on honey instead of milk. They were sacred to Artemis and they appear on her statues and on her coins; Mahomet admits bees to Paradise. In modern Christian art they symbolize industry.