The Maya had deep feelings for their bees not only because of the wonderful honey they produced, but also because, being stingless, the bees were viewed as touchingly vulnerable.Moreover, bee society was considered a model of the ideal human society.To be successful, a beekeeper was expected to ensure that peace and harmony prevailed in his own family.If he failed to do so, the bees, highly sensitive to quarreling and discord, might stop producing.The Maya also believed that bees had souls and that the honey they produced had divine properties.In fact, after the Spanish conquest, the Maya celebrated mass with honey mixed with water, rather than the traditional wine, to symbolize the blood of Christ.Bee symbolism reached a pinnacle in the early Christian church.The church during that period was rife with mysticism, taboos, and insect symbolism.Certain insects were considered icons of evil.Flies conspired with the devil and were unclean, beetles were heretics, and moths represented the temptations of the flesh.In a sense, early Christianity orbited around the bee just as surely as the sun was believed to orbit the earth.Bee society was held up as a model that human society, with its tendencies toward anarchy and lawlessness, would do well to emulate.Honey bees also came to symbolize the Christian ideal of chastity, for, as we’ve seen, they were believed to arise from virgin births, not unlike the virgin birth of Christ.If the church had known the facts about honey bee mating rituals, it would probably have chosen the bee as a symbol of debauchery and promiscuous lust.Before he could retrieve it, a bee flew into the church, seized the transubstantiated bread, and flew away.The horrified monarch sent messengers to beekeepers throughout his empire, ordering them to search their hives for the purloined wafer and offering a large reward for its return.Not long afterward, a provincial beekeeper arrived at the imperial palace bearing an oddly shaped honeycomb.A closer look revealed that the honeycomb had been constructed around the missing wafer.As we know, honey has long been a symbol associated with affairs of the heart.Bridegroom, dear to my heart,Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet,Lion, dear to my heart,Goodly is your beauty.In many of the world’s religions, honey is a symbol of veracity.While the honeyed language of love may not always be truthful, honey itself can tell no lies.Honey signifies truth because it needs no treatment to transform it after it has been collected.Truth was thought to be passed on by the bees through their honey so that the elect could express it in their scholarship and poetry.Ambrose when they were children so that, as adults, they would speak and write only what was true.The ancient Egyptians also made the connection between honey and truth in language.During his festival, held on the nineteenth day of the month named in his honor, his disciples greeted one another with the phrase Sweet is the truth and made him generous offerings of honey.O Asvins, lords of Brightness, anoint me with the honey of the bee, that I may speak forceful speech among men.