Motion diagram. A Deaf-recorded clip from the PopSign corpus (CC BY 4.0) exists for this sign and can be placed here.
BEE
“bee”
Pinch an 'F' hand against your cheek (the sting), then brush the cheek with a flat hand (swatting it away).
Where the sign comes from
IconicThe sign visibly depicts its meaning — a present-day resemblance, not a historical claim.
A two-part mime: the sting, then the swat. One of the few animal signs that depicts what the animal does to you.
- ASL-LEX (iconicity)Sehyr, Zed Sevcikova, Naomi Caselli, Ariel Cohen-Goldberg, and Karen Emmorey. "The ASL-LEX 2.0 Project: A Database of Lexical and Phonological Properties for 2,723 Signs in American Sign Language." Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 26, no. 2 (2021): 263–277. link
The sign, taken apart
Every ASL sign is built from a handshape, a place it's made, and a movement. Learn to see these three and you can read and store any sign.
Starts as index and thumb pinched, other three fingers up; ends as flat hand, fingers together, thumb along the side.
Also: letter F, number 9
Made at the cheek.
One-handed.
Palm facing in.