Yesterday I was part of a ceremony in Avebury to celebrate and honour the bees. I decided to go because of the major crisis bees are going through worldwide. At the ceremony (organized by astrologer Elisabeth Keller) I discovered that bees do use a figure of eight dance to communicate where new sources of food are. How fascinating to use a dance as a language to communicate, can you imagine humans doing the same?
Altar set up in Avebury by Collette Barnard of Sweet Track Counselling
(The details of the dance were worked out by Karl von Frisch and his colleagues and are detailed
in his 1967 book The Dance Language and Orientation of Bees.
Von Frisch was able to watch the bees perform dances by replacing one of the walls of the hive with glass.)
Over one hundred and forty people from all over England and also from the States gathered in a big circle and each one of them blessed with a positive word Glastonbury springs water which was then sprinkled on the land to bless the earth to generate flowers that will feed the bees (this was at around 8pm). The circle was finally blessed by birds flying over it and also a bee appeared despite the time of the day!
Bees are such amazing little insects playing a vital role in the natural eco-system. They also produce honey, beeswax, propolis, royal gelly and pollen! So small and yet so powerful...
To know more about the bee crisis and the implications of it I recommend the book A world without bees by Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum.
