How the sad news was broken to the Queen’s bees – no, really
TO A nation in mourning already grappling with arcane ceremonies, the proclamation of a new King to thousands of bees might seem the most baffling of all.
But according to an ancient superstition this is vital if the Palace bees are not to buzz off.
Within hours of Queen Elizabeth’s passing, the King’s beekeeper John Chapple, 79, was heading to Buckingham Palace and Clarence House to break the sad news to his hives.
On each he carefully draped a black ribbon tied in a bow. Then, after a quiet prayer, he tapped on every hive in turn murmuring: ‘The mistress is dead. But don’t you go. Your master will be a good master to you.’
The ritual stems from the superstition that failure to tell the bees of their new owner could spell disaster. They may fail to produce honey, die in their thousands or simply take flight and head elsewhere to avoid danger.
Buckingham Palace has five hives and Clarence House two. In high summer the total population is around a million. However, by early autumn each hive contains only around 20,000.
Putting bees ‘in mourning’, and passing on other important household news such as births and marriages, is a custom in many European countries including Germany, the Netherlands, France and Switzerland.