During renovations of the 600 year old chapel construction workers discovered two stone beehives high on the roof of Rosslyn Chapel. It is certain that the beehives were built on the chapel between 1446-1484.

One of the beehives was not accessible for ‘harvesting’ but both could be used by the bees. Access to the open beehive was through an intricate stone-sculpted flower. It almost seemed that the one open beehive was not meant for harvesting honey, because due to the structure harvesting would be impossible. No one can easily harvest honey on a church roof. So if the beehive was meant for bees, it was only to give them shelter.

The spiritual or metaphysical reasons for two beehives on the roof of Rosslyn Chapel

William St. Clair had hidden reasons to build Rosslyn Chapel, of which one was already ascertained in the articles about the Devil inside Rosslyn, and the Devil’s Chord. William St. Clair was angry at the Roman Catholic Church for their betrayal of the Knights Templar, when the Church abrogated the Order of the Knights Templar in 1312 and allowed King Philip IV (1268-1314) to burn most of the Knights Templar at the stake.

William St. Clair could not openly show this anger, or his connectedness with the Knights Templar, but he could place evidence of his loyalty to the Knights Templar on the roof of his Chapel.

Why would William St. Clair choose a beehive?

There are several reasons why he would prefer to choose a beehive, regarding the Knights Templar:

• The Freemasons, who may allegedly be the successors of the original Order of the Knights Templar use bees as their Grand Hieroglyphic of Masonry
• and the beehive itself is used as a symbol within Freemasonry.
• The ‘cell chamber’ in a beehive, of which a beehive inside is built, is a Pentacle. The Pentacle is the Knight Templar’s most used symbol.
• One can wonder if William St. Clair hoped to attract as many ‘bees’ as possible, which would only come in – and more importantly – drop their ‘honey’ at the Chapel, which was to remain there, hidden and ‘never harvested.’ Is this something we can relate to a possible treasure, which had to be collected at Rosslyn Chapel?

What may have been other reasons to use beehives as a secret symbol?

• Bees were a symbol which the Meroving Kings used. In the grave of Childeric I, father of Clovis 1 Meroving, 300 gold bees were found. Most French Kings used the bee as their symbol, some of them turned the bee around to turn it into the lily. Napoleon Bonaparte used the bee again as his symbol, when he became France’s emperor.
• The Meroving always claimed that one of their first kings married Jesus Christ’s daughter when she fled to France. They stole the big treasure of the Lombards that disappeared entirely through the ages, but may have been in the possession of the Knights Templar in the 12^th and 13^th century.
• As the Meroving Kings claimed ascendancy from Jesus Christ, it may also imply that they knew more about the Holy Grail, through Maria Magdalene. Often Rosslyn Chapel is thought to be a hiding place of the Holy Grail.

“Reproduction of the bees is interesting. Not all bees have two parents. We have three classes: the queen, the female workers, and the male drones. The one special fertile female is the queen. The other females do not produce any eggs. The male bees are produced by the queen's unfertilized eggs (in other words - no father). The females are produced when the queen has mated with a male - therefore she has two parents.” (T.Worrel).

The symbolism is that the queen bee is the most important one, the males are considered rather useless. Is this a reference to the one and only Queen Bee Mary Magdalene?

Conclusion:

Two ‘innocent’ beehives on the roof of Rosslyn Chapel may mean a lot more than one might at first contemplate:

• Connection with the Knights Templar and later the Freemasonry,
• connection with the famous lost treasure of the Meroving Kings,
• connection with Mary Magdalene and the Holy Grail,
• an indication, that Rosslyn Chapel served as the collecting point of the lost treasure of the Order of the Knights Templar.