The Sacred Bee: Mormonism's Deep Connection to Ancient Symbolism

The Sacred Bee: Mormonism's Deep Connection to Ancient Symbolism

The relationship between Mormonism and bee symbolism runs far deeper than most people realize. What began as a simple agricultural symbol has profound roots in ancient religious traditions, Egyptian mysticism, and American Freemasonry. This comprehensive exploration reveals how the beehive became central to Mormon identity and why its significance extends far beyond mere industry and cooperation.

 

The Book of Mormon Foundation

The Mormon connection to bees originates from a single verse in the Book of Mormon: "And they did also carry with them deseret, which, by interpretation, is a honey bee; and thus they did carry with them swarms of bees" (Ether 2:3). This brief mention describes the Jaredites, a group in the Book of Mormon that were led by God to the Americas after the construction of the Tower of Babel.

What makes this reference particularly intriguing is that this is the only time in the Book of Mormon where the text gives a definition for a Jaredite word. The word "deseret" would become the foundation for an entire symbolic system that would define Mormon culture and identity.

From Scripture to Symbol: The Utah Territory

When Brigham Young and the Latter-day Saints arrived in Salt Lake Valley in July of 1847, Young chose the name "Deseret" for their new home, and the beehive as its emblem, symbolizing the kind of cooperative work that would be required to make the desert bloom. However, the connection between the word "deseret" and the beehive symbol wasn't immediate.

 

The symbol of the beehive and the word deseret were not yet wedded as one in the 1840s. In fact, the two words were not linked together until after the Latter-day Saints had a foothold in the Great Salt Lake Valley. Seeing the beehives and knowing Brigham Young still plans for the Territory of Utah to become the State of Deseret, people connected Deseret with the beehive. Soon, beehives turned up everywhere as a highly symbolic image.

The timing is significant: It was then that Deseret was chosen as the name of the Mormon territory in the West and the beehive symbol adopted as the state symbol. In 1849 Brigham Young formed a committee to petition the U.S. federal government charter the Salt Lake valley and surrounding land as a territory, called "Deseret."

The Kingdom of God Symbolism

While modern interpretations often focus on industry and cooperation, for early Mormons, the beehive symbolized the kingdom of God and was used as an architectural feature, in publications and discourse, on gravestones, on money, and more. This religious significance was explicit in early Mormon discourse.

Some Latter-day Saint scholars link the word beehive to the ancient Jaredite word deseret, meaning honeybee, but Hugh Nibley says there is more to the beehive symbol than the simplistic view of industry and cooperation. Church leaders used bee metaphors to describe their religious community: The Latter-day Saints, ever settling and ever on the move, adopted the bee symbol from the beginning. It caught their imagination, and they saw in it exactly what the ancients did, the example of a society in which "men lived together like bees," of the authority and order by which they were ruled, and of the industry and organization with which they gathered the sweets of the field and enhanced their growth.

In the nineteenth century, Mormons used the bee and beehive symbols to represent the Kingdom of God on the earth in the form of the Mormon theocracy in territorial Utah.

The Ancient Egyptian Connection

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Mormon bee symbolism lies in its potential ancient origins. Latter-day Saint scholar Hugh Nibley (extending the work of Egyptologist Sir Alan Gardiner) suggested an etymology by associating the word "Deseret" with the ancient Egyptian deshret, a term he translated as the "bee crown" of the Lower Kingdom, but which non-LDS scholarly sources translate as the "Red Crown".

Because the Book of Mormon was written in "reformed Egyptian," Hugh Nibley has suggested that the etymology of the word Deseret is related to the ancient Egyptian word dsrt, read by Egyptologists as desheret. In Egyptian, dsrt means the red crown (of the king of Lower Egypt). The Egyptian word for bee is b t. The title n-sw-b t was sometimes written as n-sw-b t, which literally means "He who belongs to the sedge plant (of Upper Egypt) and to the bee (of Lower Egypt)," normally translated "The King of Upper and Lower Egypt."

The name dšrt was even directly substituted for the word bee in some Egyptian texts, perhaps for sacred reasons. Not only does this Egyptian term bear a striking phonetic similarity with deseret from the Book of Mormon, but both words are associated with bees.

According to Nibley, the transporting of bee swarms was a common practice among ancient Egyptians, who held the "bee sign" to be sacred. LDS scholar Dr. Hugh Nibley has written: "Now it is a remarkable coincidence that the word deseret, or something very close to it, enjoyed a position of ritual prominence among the founders of the classical Egyptian civilization, who associated it very closely with the symbol of the bee".

The Masonic Influence

The connection between Mormon bee symbolism and Freemasonry adds another layer of complexity. Many early Mormons were also Masons, including one particularly important Mason/Mormon: Joseph Smith. Many other members of the LDS church, like Brigham Young, were Masons before they joined Mormonism. By 1840, John Cook Bennett, a former active leader in Masonry had arrived in Commerce [Nauvoo] and rapidly exerted his persuasive leadership in all facets of the Church, including Mormon Masonry. Joseph and Sidney [Rigdon] were inducted into formal Masonry...on the same day.

 

The beehive is a very old Masonic symbol that is still used in many countries, but in England and Wales it was dropped after the Union of 1813. The Early Masonic Catechisms reads, "A Bee has in all Ages and Nations been the Grand Hieroglyphic of Masonry, because it excels all other living Creatures in the Contrivance and Commodiousness of its Habitation or Comb".

In the book The Craft and Its Symbols: Opening the Door to Masonic Symbolism, by Allen E. Roberts, p.11, is a drawing of the Masonic apron presented to President George Washington by Lafayette The symbols on the apron, which were later used by the Mormons, include a beehive, all-seeing eye, compass and square, and the sun, moon and stars... Many Masonic symbols (the sun, moon, stars, all-seeing eye, beehive, hand grip, and the beehive) were also placed on the Salt Lake Temple.

Historical Context and Ancient Symbolism

From antiquity to the middle of the eighteenth century, humans used the bee and beehive symbols to represent monarchy. Political and social changes resulted in a reinterpretation of the bee and beehive symbols during the eighteenth century. Republicans ignored the royalist associations of bees and beehives, and used them to represent values of the new republicanism.

In Ancient Egyptian culture, where the bee represented both royalty and their obedient subject. One example shows that as early as 3500 BCE, the bee represented the King of Lower Egypt. In the words of Horapollo, "of all insects, the bee alone had a king." While we now know the king is the queen bee, it is understandable how the hive structure contributed to the development of this ancient symbolism.

The Roman writer Porphyry, in his work De antro nympharum (The Cave of the Nymphs), tells us that in the Roman rites of Mithra, honey from a honeycomb was poured over the initiate during the Leo (Lion) ritual while he was admonished to avoid all that which is unclean in the world.

The Shift in Meaning

According to Susan Easton Black, "Linking deseret with the symbol of the beehive was short-lived in a temporal sense. The 1872 federal rejection of the State of Deseret greatly weakened the connection between deseret and the beehive. It was further weakened when government officials of the State of Utah, several being Latter-day Saints, embraced the beehive symbol and rejected the term Deseret".

Mark Staker notes: "The meaning of the beehive shifted a little as Brigham Young's Deseret became a territory, then a state. It lost some of its religious connections but the community connotations continued." The beehive still serves as the logo of some Church-related organizations, but it's come to symbolize the whole state of Utah.

Later, when the State of Deseret became Utah, the beehive came to symbolize industry, cooperation, and economic well-being, and civic order. But Latter-day Saints would do well to remember the beehive's original symbolism of building the kingdom of God on earth.

Modern Legacy

Today, the beehive remains ubiquitous in Utah culture. When Utah territory became a state in 1896, it retained the beehive symbol in its state seal and on its flag. The state adopted the beehive as its official symbol in 1959, designated the honeybee as the state insect, and even named the "beehive cluster" as the state's astronomical symbol.

The beehive has become an everyday icon that links present-day Utahns—Mormons and non-Mormons—with their pioneer past. Deseret is now known as a trademark for Church-owned entities, including Deseret Book, Deseret News, and Deseret Industries.

Conclusion: Sacred Symbols in Secular Spaces

The Mormon connection to bee symbolism reveals a complex interweaving of ancient religious traditions, American democratic ideals, and esoteric knowledge. What began as a Book of Mormon reference to an ancient people carrying bees to a promised land evolved into a comprehensive symbolic system that encompassed Egyptian mysticism, Masonic tradition, and Christian theology.

The beehive, its connection to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the association with Deseret, and its role in Utah have long been romanticized and mythologized, with meanings and importance assigned in retrospect. Yet the evidence suggests these connections run deeper than mere coincidence or romantic attribution.

As Hugh Nibley concluded: "When a historical record of any period names persons and institutions that actually existed, it is always assumed that the record insofar as those things are concerned has authentic ties with the past. Both deseret and the honeybee seem quite at home in the twilight world of prehistory, alternately concealing and explaining each other, but never very far apart. The numerous ties and parallels that in the end must clear up the matter still await investigation. Suffice it for the present to show that such evidence does exist".

The beehive symbol thus stands as more than mere decoration on Utah's highways and buildings—it represents a unique synthesis of ancient wisdom, religious revelation, and American innovation that continues to shape Mormon identity and Utah culture today.