“TELL IT TO BEES”

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3783, 17 July 1936, Page 3

“TELL IT TO BEES”

AN ANCIENT CUSTOM. A correspondent of a London contemporary, writing from Wimbledon, in answer to an inquiry, says: “Telling the Bees,” when a death or marriage takes places in a family is or was an English practice in vogue from Northumberland to the Isle of Wight? It was also followed in the Eastern U.S.A., as Whittier’s pathetic lines on the subject make clear. A death in the family should always be notified to the bees, and in a whisper in order to lessen the shock. Else the bees will resent the slight cast on them as members of the household, and, if not properly advised, either desert the hives or die. In Shropshire even the rooks used to be informed as well; and in Oxfordshire, after a piece of black crepe had been tied on the hives, they were tapped three times with the house-key, and the inmates were told, “Bees, bees, be3s, your master is dead, and now ycu must work for the next owner. On a marriage the bees expect the hives io be decorated with H * wedding favour As to the orig n of this practice—who shall pronornce? The negroes of Surninam, in Guiana (as recorded in Stedman’s ‘ Narrative”), believe that the bees regard themselves as the master’s ter ints, and therefore as members of the household; they should never ham the master or any of his people (which indeed is a general fact). Thus, naturally, they look to being informed of any important occurrence affecting the family of which they are members.