Telling the bees: why this ancient mourning tradition has endured, according to a beekeeper's daughter
Telling the bees is a popular tradition across the four provinces of Ireland.
An account recorded in Antrim in 1954 — one of my personal favourites — describes a man by the name of Jimmy Bann, who was known for having a special connection with his bees.
He tended to share all his news with them but when it came to telling them about the passing of his dear mother, he went to special efforts.
He prepared himself by washing and shaving. He polished his Sunday boots and donned his best suit. Only then did he feel properly able to undertake the ceremony of telling the bees about his sad loss.
Although not a suit-wearing man, Dad makes it his business to wear his suit to funerals as a sign of respect for the deceased. When my mother passed away, he visited his beehives in Airfield Estate, Dundrum, to share the news of his broken heart.
No paraphernalia was used in his delivery, just a few words spoken gently, with his large hands brushing the top of each wooden hive. At the time, I recall him saying that it was the right thing to do.
In folklore, failing to do the right thing can have its repercussions.
In 1944, a Galwegian beekeeper lamented his failure to respect the custom and, in turn, how he paid the ultimate price: his bees withered away in their hives.
I had the pleasure of interviewing a man who recounted a similar story. Donal McSweeney, from Macroom in County Cork, described how he witnessed bees following their keeper’s funeral.
While pointing to the roadway the funeral procession took, he explained that the man’s bees followed him in a cloud overhead.
Donal attempted to offer a reasonable explanation, admitting "'twas rather weird", but the reality remained: that the bees accompanied their keeper to his final resting place.
Two years later, I collected a similar story in County Cork.
A woman from Ballydehob described how her cousin’s widow visited the grave of her deceased husband, a beekeeper, a few days after the burial. When she reached the grave, it was laden with bees and butterflies.
My informant speculated that perhaps the funeral flowers had attracted the bees.
However, she related that the beekeeper’s wife believed that her husband’s bees, which he had cared for so dearly, were paying their last respects and saying goodbye to their beloved keeper.
Telling the bees is a popular tradition that has been recorded in the US, Britain, and central Europe.
In the US and the Britain, the news is often delivered in the form of a rhyme, such as the following verse collected in Lincolnshire and quoted in the British Bee Journal in 1970:
When recounting the news, people might also tap the tops of the beehives using a bunch of keys. English folk practice specifies that house keys should be used for this purpose.
Another custom in England involved rotating the beehives when the corpse was being carried out of the house. It is as if the bees are being protected from the grievous moment.
This mirrors a German tradition that recommends moving the beehives gently when the Bienenvater (beekeeper, literally ‘bee father’) dies. It is said that if the beehive is not moved, the bees will abscond or die.
The practice of knocking on the hive with keys or moving its location is not commonly regarded in Ireland. However, we are fond of leaving food from the wake or funeral beside the beehives, to welcome and include the bees in the proceedings.
Spice cake, honey and mead were offered traditionally, and today this would most likely be a whiskey and a neatly-cut sandwich.
The placement of black crepe or piece of material on the roof of each hive is a familiar ritual in Counties Cork, Limerick and Dublin and clearly demonstrates that a death has occurred in the family. The dark cloth is said to serve a dual function: it enables the bees to mourn and it restricts the bees should they rise to follow their keeper. Failure to adorn the hive with a dark cloth can also result in the bees’ death, as the following 1961 account from Dublin states:
Placing a piece of crepe, tied to a stick and fastened to the hive, is another common custom in Britain, as it gives the bees the opportunity to mourn.
When Queen Elizabeth II died in 2022, the royal beekeeper, John Chapple, informed the bees in the palace apiary of the sad news. He placed black ribbons fashioned into bows on each beehive and shared the news that their mistress had died and that they would soon have a new master.
Chapple, the official palace beekeeper for 15 years, described how he knocked on the hives and requested that the bees stay where they were, with the promise that their new master would also be good to them. This reassurance is usual in folklore, where the bees are politely informed of one keeper’s passing whilst being notified that they will soon receive a new master or mistress.
In his 1880 book, , the Rev. TF Thiselton-Dyer recorded the words to be spoken, as follows:
In folklore, the origins of the ceremony of telling the bees is interwoven with the lore and legends describing bees’ divine disposition. It is a practice that brings to life the belief that bees embody the souls of the dead. In pre-Christian times, birds, butterflies and bees were believed to be intermediaries between this world and the otherworld. Folktales describe the souls of the departed leaving the bodies of humans and animals in the form of the sacred bee. Therefore, by virtue of speaking with or telling the bees, we are, in fact, delivering the news to the messengers of the gods.
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