Jewelry of any type makes a natural collectible, but if you want to make your collection especially unique, it can be a good idea to focus on items that share a particular motif. Insects, though their real-life counterparts might inspire fear and loathing, have long been favorite subjects of jewelers. Maybe it's because insects, with their bright colors, iridescent wings, and delicate appendages, look a bit like jewelry themselves. At some point, an observant jeweler must have watched a particularly colorful butterfly land on someone's shoulder and thought how beautiful it would be to produce that butterfly as a brooch, so it would seem to alight on the body permanently. Likewise, bumble bees, with their bold yellow and black colors, make a lovely model for everything from pins to earrings to pendants. Bumble bee jewelry, like any jewelry depicting an animal or insect, can range from very delicate pieces to larger pieces that would fall into the category of costume jewelry. Luckily, both types of jewelry are in style, so lovers of bumble bees should feel free to indulge their individual sense of style. In the most valuable varieties of bumble bee jewelry, the yellow and black colors of the bee are created with precious stones, perhaps yellow sapphires or diamonds alternating with ebony stripes. The body of the bee might be made of silver, gold, or another precious metal. Depending on the style of the jewelry designer, bees can be quite realistic or they can be graphic abstractions. |
