A lone honey bee, carefully crafted and cast eternal in sterling silver, hovers in mid-flight against the wearers chest. In ancient Greco-Roman beliefs, bees were thought to behave as psychopomps, ferrying souls and messages between the living realm and the Underworld. These beliefs were connected to how the bees built their nests in caves and other subterranean locations, yet they also flew freely in the springtime skies, passing between the dark and underground and the light and open. Persephone, Queen of the Underworld was connected to bees in this way, being called, The Honeyed One. Due to this, bees and their honey were associated with the dead, the ancestors, and the Gods. Their honey forever linked to offerings and to sweetening rituals.

Folklore also speaks of bee jewelry as a amulets of good fortune, luck, prosperity and ushering in sweetness. 

Bees:

Historically, bees and their hive were an important part of the family. To “Tell the Bees” is considered an ancient practice, traced as far back as Hellenistic Greece, perhaps even earlier. Hives and bees were an important part of life as honey and beeswax were valuable goods - beeswax provided a clean burning material for candles to bring light into small dark places - an apt metaphor for lighting the way in dark times and dark spaces.

The oracle site at Delphi was said to have been created by bees; even the Pythia were referenced as 'bee oracles'. While much has been written about how the Pythia's trance-like states were induced, one possible theory links their prophecy to the consumption of 'mad honey.' Known in Turkey as deli bal where it was ( and is ) harvested, and meli chloron or 'green honey' in Ancient Greek times, it behaves as a psychoactive, due to bees feeding on native rhododendron plants. In small doses in can bring on feelings of euphoria, intoxication and hallucinations, in larger doses it causes a variety of unpleasant symptoms and in rare cases, death. The poison is in the dosage. 

The practice of Telling the Bees, involved all major life events, keeping them included as one would with any other close family member. They were told of marriages, births, & perhaps most well known, deaths. The hives were heaved up at the same time the coffin was, and they were also decorated with funerary crepes. Cakes were also fed to the bees after funerals and weddings. It was believed that if a hive was not told of these life events, they would leave the hive, or even die. I like to think people would whisper secrets to the hives they could tell no one else, making the bees secret keepers. In the vein of this idea, use this ring as a talisman for your secrets, whisper them to it and bring it 'alive' as a companion for secret keeping.  

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