TELLING THE BEES

from wikipedia: “Telling the bees “is a Western European tradition in which bees are told of important events, including deaths, births, marriages and departures and returns in the keeper’s household. If the custom was omitted or forgotten and the bees were not “put into mourning,” then it was believed a penalty would be paid, such as the bees leaving their hive, stopping the production of honey or dying.
The custom is best known in England but has also been recorded in Ireland, Wales, Germany, Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Bohemia (now Czechia) and the United States.
Little is known about the origins of this practice, although there is some unfounded speculation that it is loosely derived from or perhaps inspired by ancient Aegean notions about bees’ ability to bridge the natural world and the afterlife.”

In the case for the series APHORISTIC EXTINCTIONS, bees are alpha pollinators and are critical to the natural landscape and to human survival, yet they are constantly under threat from pesticides, habitat encroachment and loss of green space through overdevelopment.