What does Rainer Maria Rilke mean by humans being “the bees of the invisible”?

In his later work, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke describes humans as "the bees of the invisible" to articulate a specific philosophical task: the transformation of the visible world into an internal, spiritual reality.1

Within Rilke’s cosmology, which rejects the traditional Christian separation of the physical and the transcendent, humans are tasked with gathering the essence of the visible world through their sensory perceptions. Just as bees collect nectar to create honey, humans "gather" the visible—the earth, life, and time—and transmute it into an "invisible" inner space.1

This process is realized through the acts of "saying," "singing," or "praising," which serve to affirm the unity of existence. By internalizing the world in this way, the poet acts as a representative of humanity, elevating the mundane into a meaningful, all-encompassing unity. This perspective reflects Rilke’s belief in a monism where life and death, and the seen and unseen, are inextricably linked.1