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Taken in the forests near Winterthur, Switzerland. These are built to help wild bees survive in their natural habitat. They are fun to build and serve a very useful purpose.
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In middle Europe, bee skeps come with faces. Further east and north, they are entire bodies of wood carved from whole tree trunks.
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The American Bee Keeper, January 1904
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The Bee Keeper's Review, January 10th, 1891
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Beekeeping in ancient Egypt. I love depictions of insects in the ancient world.
Beekeeping print tacuinum sanitatis (14th century)
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Samuel Linnaeus: Kort men tillförlitelig bij-skjötsel (Brief bit trustworthy beekeeping manual), Wexjö, 1768, reprinted in facsimile 1975
Bee bole at the temple, Newsam Estate, Leeds, styled after the original bee bole built in 1850. (Also known as bee shells.) #beekeeping
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Storage for bee skeps, built into walls from the 17th & 18th centuries to protect them from rain. These built-in cupboards were referred to as "bee boles." Cumbria. #beekeeping
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A bee skep of the heather-moor country of middle northern Germany. #antiques #bees #skeps #beekeeping
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An ornate bee shelter in Hartpury built by a stone mason in Gloucester, 1850's. #beekeeping
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The bee pendant found at Chrysolakkos, Mallia -- the first half of the second millennium BC. Layne Redmond
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Bee-goddess, perhaps associated with Artemis above female heads. Gold plaques, 7th century BC. From Layne Redmond
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The Irish St. Gobnait is known for her care of the sick. Siofra Geoghegan explains, "she had a strong relationship with bees and used the properties of honey in the treatment of illness and healing of wounds. Her name is the Irish equivalent of the Hebrew name Deborah, which means "Honey Bee.""
Another Bee Goddess from Eleutherna on Crete, c. 700 BC, Layne Redmond
The tombs at Mycenae were shaped as beehives, as was the omphalos at Delphi in Classical Greece, where Apollo ruled with his chief oracular priestess, the Pythia, who was called the Delphic Bee.
"At the Arana Cave near Valencia, Spain, Paleolithic painting survives of two men taking honey from a rock wall. In later cultures, honey was poured over thresholds and temple foundations, offered to Goddesses and Gods, and used in medicines and burials." (When the Drummers were Women" by Layne Redmond)
On 25 June 2004, a crop circle formation was reported to have appeared at Milk Hill, Wiltshire resembling a bee and hive.
"Bees, like all insects that spin cocoons or weave webs, serve as images of the miraculous interconnectedness of life. The intricate cellular structure that secretes the golden essence of life is an image of the network of invisible nature that relates all things to each other in an ordered harmonious pattern." (When the Drummers were Women by Layne Redmond)
Queen Bee. The Anatolian goddess is often shown wearing a beehive as a tiara, most frequently at Hacilar. This is the introduction of a motif that would flourish in historical times. Of all the insects represented in the ancient world, bees are foremost in ritual and symbolic meaning. The Goddess's tiara announces her status as a queen bee and suggests that she streams with honey, a much-revered substance in ancient times. (from thebeegoddess.com)
The chthonic goddess Persephone with the sacred Omphalos/Beehive/Seventh Chakra crowning her head. From the Archaeological Museum at Eleusis. Layne Redmond
AUSTEJA is the Lithuanian Bee Goddess with whom some interesting rituals are connected. It was believed that bees chose their own homes according to how generous the farmer was; when a queen hived off, the people followed until she set up a new location, after which the two families were considered linked through "biciulyste", a kind of kinship-via-bee. Neither bees nor honey could be bought or sold, because they were gifts, not products. The Lithuanian language had several words for "death", one of which was used for both bees and people. If a dead bee was found, it was buried in the Earth, not left unburied. Austeja's feast was in August, and the festivities were believed attended by dancing bees. (from Patricia Monaghan)
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The bee, found in Ancient Near East and Aegean cultures, was believed to be the sacred insect that bridged the natural world to the underworld. Appearing in tomb decorations, Mycenaean tholos tombs were even shaped as beehives - this is the omphalos in the museum of Delphi
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A Melissa, an ancient bee priestess. The bee was an emblem of Potnia, the Minoan-Mycenaean "Mistress", also referred to as "The Pure Mother Bee". Her priestesses received the name of "Melissa" ("bee"). In addition, priestesses worshipping Artemis and Demeter were called "Bees".
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Some of the great jars, or pithoi, found at Knossos were used to store honey.
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Carved onyx gem, Knossos, Crete, 1500 B.C. - The importance of bee-keeping to the Minoans is documented in the Linear A hieroglyphs, where there are already drawings of actual beehives, testifying to a long history probably going back to the Neolithic era. The onyx gem from Knossos shows the Bee Goddess bearing upon her head the bull’s horns with the double axe inside their curve. The dogs – later the dogs of the underworld belonging to Hecate and Artemis – are winged and flying so close to the goddess that their wings, at first glance, appear as hers.
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Bhramari Devi - Goddess of the Black Bees, a Hindu protectress
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In the Historic Rosslyn Chapel of the DaVinci Code fame, hidden in a part of the roof system called the “pinnacles,” which had been dismantled by the stone masons for the first time in hundreds of years while restoring the chapel, there were cavities ideally suited to, and in fact created for (wait for it) … beehives.
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Egyptian tombs from 2400BC depict beekeepers collecting honey as well as traveling with hives for the purpose of pollinating crops. The bee was so important to the Egyptians that they used bees as a symbol of regal power.
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Fetching pins…
Lana Thomas Beautiful!