BEE HERALDRY

In European heraldry, a symbolic reference such as a bee, castle, drawbridge or wheatsheaf is known as a “cant”. Cants invariably have centuries of cultural significance and/or more than a bit of baggage.

In the arms of Napoleon III, for example, (think Les Misérables*), there are figurative hives of bees, a desperate invocation of his ancestor Napoleon Bonaparte (think Joaquin Phoenix). Going backward, Bonny mark 1 had resurrected his bees from the ancient arms of Merovingian monarchs (6th to 8th centuries CE) as a massive bit of hubris. The Merovingians had gone with Honeybees to reflect both hard work and immortality, cants that they had nicked from the Romans. Etc….

So a bee in a design may not just be there to be pretty, it’s very possibly a cant and have cultural and historic significance.

* The fairly useless Napoleon III was deposed in absentia and died in Chistlehurst, Kent, in 1873.