The Bee Tarot
I just love bees. 🙂 Growing up I remember watching my Grandfather work on the hive behind his house. I loved the fresh honey that we got to take home with us in jars. My fiancee has experience keeping bees as well and honestly if I had a bit more room on my property to situate them correctly I would love to have a hive here. When I saw Kristoffer Hughes talk about creating a tarot deck based on bees I was over the Moon excited. I now have the deck and I I love it.
In mythology you will often find that bees are referenced as messengers of the Gods and their gifts of honey are said to have brought wisdom. Bees are incredibly important as they pollinate our flowers, plants, and trees, many of which are dependent upon them for their survival and provide a large portion of the food that we enjoy.
As a spirit animal they bring energy of connection with others and with the divine. They help you to learn to celebrate what makes you an individual as well as to learn how to be an important part of your surrounding community. They bring energy of the Gods and spirit and are a valuable companion on your spiritual journey.
The art on the deck does an amazing job capturing the spirit of the bee along with the ancient energy that I feel they carry. Nadia Turner is an amazing artist and clearly the perfect choice for this deck. The cards are gorgeous!! I don’t think I found any cards disappointing and I’ll be honest I think most of the cards in this deck would make a beautiful print on any wall! Above I have a sampling of some of the cards for you so you can get a feel for the deck. The entire deck has this whole cottage, historic, relaxing vibe that I just love. I was so excited looking through each of the cards.
I pulled these three off the top of the deck to give you a close-up so you can see better what I’m talking about. Aren’t they gorgeous?? One of the important things that I look for as a tarot reader is the detail in the cards and this is a great deck for details. It would give my main deck a running honestly and while I designed one specific reading for the shop with this deck I may try to incorporate it into some more readings in the future.
The deck follows the Rider-Waite system. If you are just learning tarot and looking for that first deck, this is one I can definitely recommend. The suits are all true to the Rider-Waite with the exception of Cups being called Jars. It didn’t impact my ability to read with these at all. If you are familiar with reading the cards, you will find these a joy to work with.
A couple more things that are incredibly important to me is durability of the cards and ease of shuffling. The cards are a great slightly bigger than standard size that I find fits comfortably in my hand. The card stock is sturdy and it’s holding up easily to my frequent shuffling already. It’s also incredibly easy to shuffle! I’m in love!
They come in a great box to keep them in with a gorgeous guidebook. The descriptions are incredibly enjoyable to work with and they make sense. The guidebook is an incredibly valuable tool to go with the cards and I’ve enjoyed seeing Kristoffer and Nadia’s interpretations of what the cards mean to them. This is a deck that I’m quite comfortable recommending and I know I will.
Of course you know I had to design a reading to go with it! I really enjoyed the sample readings included in the guidebook and I chose to take some incredible inspiration from them and design a reading that I felt pulled some of the best things from the readings they designed as well as including some of my own that I thought would make the reading that I created for you flow. You can find that reading here: The Magick of the Bees Tarot Reading. I can’t wait to work with the cards with all of you!
I hope that you have the most magickal day!
Much Love and Many Blessings,
Jasmeine Moonsong
All images from the Bee Tarot by Kristoffer Hughes (Author), Nadia Turner (Author) 2024 Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd. 2143 Wooddale Drive, Woodbury, MN 55125. All rights reserved, used by permission.