Bees

• Type: Insect (Mundane and Magical varieties)
• Owners: Aberforth Dumbledore is a known keeper of mundane bees.

Bees in the wizarding world encompass both mundane, non-magical insects and various bee-like magical creatures. Mundane honeybees are kept by wizards, such as the colony maintained by Aberforth Dumbledore in the garden behind the Hog's Head Inn. Several magical insects bear similarities to bees:

• Glumbumble: A grey, furry-bodied flying insect that produces a treacle known to induce melancholy. They nest in dark, secluded places like hollow trees or caves.
• Billywig: An insect native to Australia, the Billywig is about half an inch long and a vivid sapphire blue. Its wings are attached to the top of its head and rotate, causing it to spin as it flies. It has a long, thin stinger at the bottom of its body.

While mundane bees produce honey and wax, which are used in various foods and likely potions, their magical counterparts possess more extraordinary properties.

• Glumbumble Treacle: The treacle produced by Glumbumbles is used as an antidote to the hysteria caused by eating Alihotsy leaves. Horace Slughorn was seen collecting this substance from a nest in Hagrid's garden.
• Billywig Stings: A sting from a Billywig causes the victim to feel giddy and then to levitate. Dried Billywig stings are used as a potion ingredient and are a key component in the popular sweet, Fizzing Whizbees.

The most direct appearance of bees is in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley see a “small and rather overgrown garden” with “the sagging remains of a beehive” upon their arrival at the Hog's Head Inn. Aberforth Dumbledore later complains that the bees have been bad-tempered due to a wet summer, a mundane detail that grounds the tense search for Horcruxes in a moment of normalcy. Symbolically, bees are most famously connected to Albus Dumbledore. The character's name itself is derived from an old word for “bumblebee,” reflecting a key aspect of his personality as imagined by the author.

J.K. Rowling has stated in interviews that she chose the name “Dumbledore” because it is an 18th-century word for bumblebee. Her reasoning was that she pictured the Headmaster walking around the grounds of Hogwarts humming to himself, much like a buzzing bee. (J.K. Rowling interview)