> From:    Pete B <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> 
> Hi all 
> I have been trying with no luck to figure out the origin of the term "bees" for a gathering of people:

Interesting question, Peter. My library of etymologies turns up nothing specifically referencing this use, but online are some fair descriptions you've likely already encountered:

a) http://spellingbee.com/origin-term-spelling-bee [with references]
"The earliest known example in print is a spinning bee, in 1769." and
"One possibility is that it comes from the Middle English word bene, which means "a prayer" or "a favor" (and is related to the more familiar word boon). In England, a dialect form of this word, been or bean, referred to "voluntary help given by neighbors toward the accomplishment of a particular task." (Webster's Third New International Dictionary)."

b) https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/alternate-spelling-bee-titles
Also references the origin of ME "bene"

As for "bene," it comes from the Indo-European "bha" which essentially means "to speak." There are extensive notes on this in Joseph Shipley's ORIGINS OF ENGLISH WORDS (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), the pertinent reference being to "boon" in the sense cited above a "prayer" (spoken), distinguished from "boon" companion, which is unrelated and comes from the Latin "bonus" = good, "bonus" having its own root of (Old Latin) dvonus and dvenos, traced from Indo-European "deu."

Chambers' DICTIONARY OF ETYMOLOGY has it thus:
"boon1 n. Probably about 1350 bone benefit (in Ywain and Gawain); earlier, prayer, request, grant, (probably before 1200, in Ancrene Riwle); borrowed from a Scandanavian source (compare Old Icelandic bōn petition; cognate with Old English bēn, prayer), from Proto-Germanic bōniz, and probably cognate with Latin fārī to speak, from Indo-European bhā-."

"Bee" the insect has a remarkably consistent and direct etymology. Chambers says:
"bee n. insect. Old English bēo (before 900, in Alfred's translation of Boethius' De Consolatione Philosophiae), earlier bio-wyrt bee wort, a plant (about 700) and Bēo-wulf Bee-wolf, a personal name (about 725, in Beowulf). The word is cognate with Old High German bīa, bini bee (modern German Biene), Old Icelandic by (usually in compounds), Middle Dutch bie (modern Dutch bij), and is found in many other of the older European languages, such as Old Slavic bičela, Old Prussian bitte, and Welsh bydaf nest of wild bees, from Indo-European bhei/ bhi."

Your own notes on the Dutch bijwerken meaning "are very interesting, the etymology of Dutch "werken" meaning itself "to work, to make" (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/werken#Dutch). But does the Dutch 'bijwerken" have anything to do with "bee" in the sense of "quilting bee" for instance? Otherwise "bijwerken" seems disconnected to your quest for that etymology.

My two cents is that there's an oral tradition that stems from the "prayer/ favor" roots of "bee" (bhā) separate from the word for the insect... unless the Indo-Europeans also recognized the gifts of the bee in naming it (bhei)!

Bob Redmond
Burien, WA






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