Buzz
We’ve all experienced that persistent thought or topic that consumes our mind, making it hard to focus on anything else. But how and when did this sensation come to be compared to a bee trapped inside a hat?
Most sources suggest that the phrase bee in your bonnet dates back several centuries, long before They Might Be Giants highlighted it in their popular 1990 song Birdhouse In Your Soul. Interestingly, bonnets weren’t even part of the original expression.
One of the earliest instances of a similar bee-related phrase appears in Scottish poet and clergyman Gavin Douglas’s 1513 translation of Virgil’s epic Aeneid into Scottish verse. He writes, “Quhat bern be thou in bed, with hed full of beys,” which roughly translates to “What, man, rot thou in bed with thy head full of bees.” This references a Scottish idiom about having a “head full of bees,” which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as “having a fantasy, an eccentric whim, a craze on some point, [or] a ‘screw loose.’” The link between madness and bees in one’s head persisted—Scottish satirist Samuel Colville wrote in his 17th-century satire The Scots Hudibras, “But bishops say such thoughts delude, which comes from brains which have a bee.”
The phrase bee in your bonnet likely evolved from the Scottish idiom, transforming into its modern meaning: an intense focus on a specific idea, often bordering on obsession. Reverend John Barker acknowledged this Scottish origin in a 1738 letter to Reverend Philip Doddridge, writing, “He has, as the Scotch call it, a Bee in his Bonnet.”
The transition of bees from brains to bonnets isn’t as odd as it may appear. Bonnets were worn by both men and women in Scotland during that era, and beekeepers, who initially used wicker masks for protection, began wearing the now-familiar beekeeping veil in the 1600s. Given the prevalence of beekeeping in rural Scottish and English communities, encountering a bee in your headwear—or elsewhere in your clothing—would have been a common enough experience to inspire such an idiom (and likely some colorful language).
The longevity of the phrase, despite the decline of both bonnets and bees, is perhaps its most remarkable feature. For instance, bee in your bonnet appeared in the script for 2002’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (referencing the protagonist’s fixation on a mystery) and was used as the title of a 2022 episode of the popular Netflix series Bridgerton.
Like many idioms, the concept of a bee in your bonnet has expanded over time. Introducing an idea that someone becomes fixated on is described as putting a bee in their bonnet (as seen in an October 2006 letter in Minnesota’s Bemidji Pioneer, urging readers to “Put a bee in the bonnet of candidates on timber jobs”). Conversely, someone overly focused on a topic is advised to get the bee out of their bonnet (as Arjun Seth wrote in a March 2023 op-ed for Palatinate, a student newspaper: “If the Sussexes really want their other ventures to take off, they need to get the bee out of their bonnet first.”).
With origins potentially stretching back over 500 years, the metaphor of a bee in your bonnet for persistent ideas shows no signs of fading. Let’s hope the same holds true for bees themselves. And if you ever encounter a literal bee in your bonnet—or elsewhere in your attire—stay calm. If you can remain composed and remove the bee carefully, you’ll likely avoid a sting that could linger in your thoughts for quite some time.
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