bee violet

noun

A color visible to bees that has a frequency of about 400 mμ, spanning a portion of the spectrum that covers violet blue through the lower frequencies of the ultraviolet range.

Meanings

nounbee violet (countable and uncountable, plural bee violets)

plural bee violets

  1. countableuncountableA color visible to bees that has a frequency of about 400 mμ, spanning a portion of the spectrum that covers violet blue through the lower frequencies of the ultraviolet range.

    Karl von Frisch discovered that honey bees can see six colors—blue, blue-green, yellow, bee purple, ultraviolet, and bee violet.

    2010, Martha Scott, Honey Bee, Where Are You?
    1 more example

    To a bee, it is a carelessly formed, perhaps Impressionistic world in which movement carries great meaning and in which the richness of color is extended to endow two flowers, each an insipid white to us, with radically different shades of "bee-violet."

    2013, Arthur C. Giese, Photophysiology, page 79
Cite this entry
APA

bee violet. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bee%20violet

MLA

“bee violet.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bee%20violet. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bee violet,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bee%20violet.

Source: bee violet on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.