Day and night, hives are a pretty hectic place. While bees are social insects, they live in an enclosed space without traffic lights or dividing lines, meaning every second is filled with bees brushing by and maneuvering around each other. In fact, it's the primary way that the scents of the queen affect the hive. Her pheromones are continually spread as bees slide, collide, and rub against each other in a mass of pedestrians and traffic jams that make Calcutta look sparse in comparison.
I can't imagine that kind of stimulation and interaction without needing a way to get apart for a while, get alone, get some peace, quiet, and sleep. Of course, bees are not people, but they need the same things now and again. But how? Where do they go when they want to be alone?
Well, if you ever look carefully inside a hive, you get that question answered pretty quickly. You'll see the rear ends of dozens of bees barely sticking out of individual cells in the honeycomb. Tired, stressed, and overwhelmed bees find an empty one and crawl headfirst into it for a little peace, privacy, rest, self-reflection, meditation—whatever it is that bees do. It's a snug fit, but I imagine being inside a cell is a heavenly respite from the bustle and noise that normally surrounds them.
I completely empathize. I sometimes wonder if there's something wrong with me that I regularly need separating from other people at times. But then I look at the sleeping bees, comforted by this realization: They're maybe the most social of the social insects, programmed to interact constantly with thousands of others . . . and yet even they need to be alone sometimes.
Mormons have had a longtime affinity with the beehive. Historians say that Joseph Smith borrowed the beehive symbol from the Masons, of which he was a member. Wherever he got them, there are beehives depicted all over the Salt Lake City temple and headquarters. In fact, when the Utah territory applied for statehood, the Mormons in charge wanted to call it Deseret. According to Smith's Book of Mormon “deseret” was the word for bee in the language of the Jaredites, a tribe of Babylonian Hebrews led by brothers Jared and Mahonri Moriancumer after the fall of the Tower of Babel. The Jaredites allegedly traveled to ancient America by barge and lived on the shores of Lake Ontario. Mormon tradition has it that they had hives full of “deserets” thousands of years before honey bees were (re?)introduced to America by European settlers in the 1700s.
The Mormons, like the Masons (and perhaps the Jaredites), believed that the honey bee society was a great role model for their communities. An 1881 editorial in the Deseret News explained, “The hive and the honey bee form our communal coat of arms . . . It is a significant representation of the industry, harmony, order and frugality of the people, and the sweet results of their toil, union, and intelligent cooperation.”
In a sense they were right. Honey bees work for the good of all, don't accumulate personal stores, but share all as needed, take care of their young, and all that. However, if taken too seriously, you really wouldn't want to live in a society based on the honey beehive. (See the following “Bees Are a Bad Role Model for Communities” section.)
Despite the petition from the governor of the territory, who also happened to be Brigham Young, spiritual leader of the church, Deseret was rejected as a state name. Federal authorities believed that using that name would be stepping all over the “establishment of religion” line. The territory was admitted in 1896 as Utah, honoring the Ute people.
The Mormons managed to establish the state's nickname as The Beehive State. This, despite bees finding much of the state inhospitable. Honey is not exactly a huge crop there. But hey, there were never any wolverines living in The Wolverine State either.