Telling the Bees

There is an old European custom that required the beekeeper of the family to inform the household’s bees of important events such as baptisms, marriages, and deaths. If and when the family beekeeper passed away, a member of the family was to drape the hive with a black cloth and knock at each hive to tell the bees that their keeper has passed on so that the bees themselves could mourn. When the world was a much slower, quieter, less crowded place and most people made a living close to the land, the sacred was everywhere and people were able to have the time to be more reverent. I can see a future that will make room for these old reverent customs again.