Beehive: Household Magic

Bee and Hive Symbolism

In many forms of folklore, bees represent unity as part of their tribe. They're fiercely protective of their home. Try finding a group of bees and persuade them to make a home in the trees in your yard. Once they've gotten themselves settled, ask them to be protectors of your property. 

Bees are known to be proficient gatherers. They gather their pollen and then take it to the hive, day in and day out from spring to late fall during the day they labor to bring in their food supply for all in the hive. The hive stores their precious cargo, meaning prosperity to all in the hive. Try enchanting the beehive for prosperity to bring abundance and fortune to your home.

The hexagonal shape of the honeycomb (six was believed to be the number of Aphrodite and later Venus) was the sacred geometric shape of harmony. Bees, who were considered in Greece to be the souls of dead priestesses, were creators of this perfect form and thus greatly revered. The mathematician Pythagoras believed that the honeycomb form suggested a symmetry that was reflected in the cosmos itself. If you can find an empty, unused hive, bring it inside and keep it on your altar. Allow it to represent abundance, fertility, and harmony. This beehive can also serve as a reminder that nature sometimes needs our help too.

Because beehives symbolize harmony and working together, find a beehive and focus on it for intention on an important work project, or a family project that needs to be done with no competition. Sitting and contemplating the wonderful end result that they bring is essential. Remember that we see on the outside is as beautiful as what can’t see on the inside. 

Queen bees are amazingly fertile so beehives might also be an element for fertility and abundance work. Beehives preserve and protect the sweet honey that the bees create so they might be used as a symbol of gathering sweetness and abundance.

In some legends, bees are associated with the telling of truth and unearthing of deceptions and falsehoods. 

Irish folklorist Eimear Chaomhánach writes, 

"One tradition from Central Europe describes how women used to lead their lovers past beehives, believing that if their partners were unfaithful, the bees would detect this, and sting them."

Magical Hives in the Home

Many bees have stingers and they do protect their hives, so the hive can serve as an element of a protection or defense ritual/spell etc. 

Bees are known for their skills in finding flowers, and their complex dance which communicates the location of rich pollen to the rest of their community, so incorporate a hive into spell work related to finding and retrieval, or community development and growth.

If you spend any time at all on healing work within your magic, remember that honey is the ultimate antibiotic. It can be put on cuts and scrapes and speeds their healing. It’s packed full of skin conditioners, so you can put it in my homemade soap. Its beautiful, light scent is terrific in aromatherapy, so you can also incorporate bits of a dried honeycomb into incense or potpourri for ritual use. Finally, make your own candles with the beeswax for use in ritual; it burns so much cleaner than paraffin.

Considering the ecological problem honeybees are experiencing right now, why not use the beehive to invoke nature spirits to help the local ecosystem? Try writing a short ceremony using honey and the hive itself, while the spirits of nature and of your land to help the bees.

Some people use a beehive to help reinforce the positive energy they are projecting out as they say a prayer or spell of protection. In  many case, holding something natural helps you envision your target stronger and pull up energy from the earth.