Bee Tattoo Meaning: Work, Community and the Soul

The tears of the sun

An Egyptian myth tells that when the sun god Ra wept, his tears fell to the earth and turned into bees. The bee was born of divine light, and its honey and wax were holy, used in offerings, in medicine and in the rituals of the temples.

The bee was also a royal sign. One of the titles of the pharaoh, the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, was written with a sedge plant and a bee, and the bee stood for Lower Egypt. To the Egyptians the bee meant kingship as well as the sacred.

The bees of Delphi

The Greeks admired the bee's order and purity. The priestess of the oracle at Delphi was called "the Delphic bee" by the poet Pindar, and the Greek word for bee, melissa, became a name. Honey was the food of the gods and of poets; legends tell of bees settling on the lips of infants destined for eloquence.

The bee in Christianity

Christian tradition tells the same story of Saint Ambrose of Milan: as a baby, a swarm of bees settled on his face and left without harm, a sign of the honeyed words he would one day preach. He is the patron saint of beekeepers.

On the night before Easter, in the ancient hymn sung over the paschal candle, the Exsultet, the Church praises the work of the bee, because the candle that stands for the risen Christ is made from its wax. The bee became a symbol of tireless, selfless work offered to God.

The Bible praises honey as well: "Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones" (Proverbs 16:24).

The emblem of empires

When the tomb of the Frankish king Childeric I was discovered in 1653, it contained small golden ornaments shaped like bees. Napoleon chose the golden bee as an emblem of his empire, linking himself with the oldest kings of France, and his coronation robes were embroidered with bees.

In Rome the Barberini family, from whom came Pope Urban VIII, bore three bees on their coat of arms. Bernini carved them into the fountains and monuments he made for the family, and they can still be seen across the city.

The hive and the worker bee

A beehive is a picture of a perfect community: thousands of lives working together, each with its task, for the good of all. In Manchester the worker bee has been the city's emblem of hard work and industry since the nineteenth century. The beehive is the emblem of Utah, the Beehive State, as a sign of industry and cooperation.

Telling the bees

In old English and European folk custom, bees were treated almost as members of the family. When someone in the household died, married or was born, a person would go to the hives and "tell the bees" the news, sometimes draping them in black for mourning. It was believed that bees not told might leave. Behind the custom lay an old belief that bees moved between this world and the next, and carried the souls of the dead.

Companions and variations

A bee with a flower is the relationship of giving and receiving, work that makes the world bloom.

A queen bee with a crown is leadership, female strength and the mother at the centre of a family.

A honeycomb speaks of order, community and the sweet rewards of effort.

What a bee tattoo means to the person who wears it

Hard work and dedication: sweetness that is earned.

Community and family: the hive above the self.

Memory: a soul that has flown on.

Care for nature: the small life on which so much depends.