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Bees – Lectures by Rudolf Steiner

December 22nd 1923

Bees can't find their way into the spirit world. We have to take them to an empty beehive to bring about a reincarnation of bees. This is very directly a picture of reincarnating human beings. That person who can observe such a phenomenon develops a tremendous respect for these old swarming bees with their queen, a swarm that acts the way it does because it is trying to find its way into the spiritual world.

But this swarm has become so caught up in the material world, so physical, that it can no longer fulfill this desire. So the bees cuddle up together and become a single body. They want very much to be together. They want to leave this world. And you also know that while they are flying about, they might attach themselves to a tree trunk or something similar, and then they press themselves together in order to disappear, because they want to gain entrance into the spirit world.

And then they once again become a proper colony when we help them by bringing them back to their new beehive.

So from this description you could probably say that insects teach us nothing short of what might be considered the highest understanding we can derive from nature.