Telling the bees – a long lost tradition?

Source of image of the painting above: (Telling the Bees by Charles Napier Hemy) is from this website for use in the Public Domain

Bees are an important part of our natural burial grounds. Supporting pollinators like these is one of the ways we work with nature. They pollinate our beautiful wildflowers (like the beautiful flowers shown below). They also play an important role in ensuring we have healthy ecosystems. Bees have been around for millions of years and without them, we wouldn’t have the food we need so they are essential to our survival. They also have a special connection to death. For some this is spiritual, but there is another connection. A long lost tradition we found very interesting called, telling the bees. There are also similarities to the ways we talk to our pets so this tradition may not be as lost as we think.

Telling the bees

​​Telling the bees was a tradition that became popular in the 19th century when families had their own beehives. These bees were part of everyday life and were considered to be extended members of the family. Beekeepers or family members would keep the bees up to date with certain events. These events included significant events like the birth, marriage or death of a family member.

When someone in the family died you would have to go, knock and tell each hive in succession. Sometimes black fabric was draped over the hive during the mourning period. This would place the bees in mourning along with the rest of the family. Some also believed they passed messages you told along to those that had died. They perceived the bees as having a symbolic link to the family. It was very important that the bees were told of these events. If they weren’t it was thought it could result in the loss of the hive.

You can read about this tradition of ‘Telling the Bees’ in the poem shared by John Greenleaf Whittier’s in 1858. We have included this at the bottom of the blog.

The Source of the image of the painting above: (Telling the Bees by Hans Thoma) – is from this website for use in the Public Domain

A link to life and death

Bees are important in both life and death. They ensure that life thrives, but as we have seen they have a very special connection to death. Their link to the ‘spiritual plane’ may have come about because of their importance in Celtic Mythology. The presence of a bee after a death symbolised the soul leaving the body. But we also have our own special ways of symbolising this. This includes the presence of a butterfly, bird or rainbow. It’s slightly different, but the meaning and spiritual connection are just as important as they ever were. They also bring the same amount of comfort to those that would see a bee and feel the presence of the people they loved.

Is this tradition really lost?

There is another element to this we may want to consider. Is this tradition lost or has it just changed as we have changed?

When you look at how we confide in our animals and how we speak to them when we are grieving. The ways we turn to them when we are going through a hard time, you can understand how this could have been therapeutic. If people grew as fond of their bees as we do of the pets that we care for did they find solace in the same way we do when we turn to our pets? Especially at the times, we want our thought, words or emotions to remain private.

This could have been an acceptable way for people to express their grief in these times. A chance for them to feel and come to terms with events in their life without the worry of judgement. It would be interesting to know if there are still those that tell the bees. When you see a bee at a funeral in the future you may wish to think back to that ancient Celtic belief and share your message for a loved one.

Before them, under the garden wall,
Forward and back,
Went drearily singing the chore-girl small,
Draping each hive with a shred of black.

Trembling, I listened: the summer sun
Had the chill of snow;
For I knew she was telling the bees of one
Gone on the journey we all must go!

Telling the bees – John Greenleaf Whittier

John Greenleaf Whittier’s Poem – Telling the Bees – 1858

Here is the place; right over the hill
Runs the path I took;
You can see the gap in the old wall still,
And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook.

There is the house, with the gate red-barred,
And the poplars tall;
And the barn’s brown length, and the cattle-yard,
And the white horns tossing above the wall.

There are the beehives ranged in the sun;
And down by the brink
Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o’errun,
Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink.

A year has gone, as the tortoise goes,
Heavy and slow;
And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows,
And the same brook sings of a year ago.

There’s the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze;
And the June sun warm
Tangles his wings of fire in the trees,
Setting, as then, over Fernside farm.

I mind me how with a lover’s care
From my Sunday coat
I brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my hair,
And cooled at the brookside my brow and throat.

Since we parted, a month had passed,–
To love, a year;
Down through the beeches I looked at last
On the little red gate and the well-sweep near.

I can see it all now,—the slantwise rain
Of light through the leaves,
The sundown’s blaze on her window-pane,
The bloom of her roses under the eaves.

Just the same as a month before,–
The house and the trees,
The barn’s brown gable, the vine by the door,–
Nothing changed but the hives of bees.

Before them, under the garden wall,
Forward and back,
Went drearily singing the chore-girl small,
Draping each hive with a shred of black.

Trembling, I listened: the summer sun
Had the chill of snow;
For I knew she was telling the bees of one
Gone on the journey we all must go!

Then I said to myself, “My Mary weeps
For the dead today:
Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps
The fret and the pain of his age away.”

But her dog whined low; on the doorway sill,
With his cane to his chin,
The old man sat; and the chore-girl still
Sung to the bees stealing out and in.

And the song she was singing ever since
In my ear sounds on:–
“Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence!
Mistress Mary is dead and gone!”