Telling the bees

It was a custom among families that kept bees that whenever there was a death in the family someone must go out and tell the bees. Or else further calamity will follow such as another death in the family or the bees swarming or dying out completely.

There was a relationship with the human family and the bees. The bees were informed of important events, deaths, marriages, and births. There were associated customs such as cloaking the hives with either black or white cloth, and of leaving out cake for the bees. And failing to inform the bees caused all kinds of problems for the family and for the bees. Books were written recounting such stories, beehives failing because of not being informed, then put into mourning by placing a black cloth over the hives and the bees recovering. Stories of beehives dying out are recorded in books, and in songs, and in poems.  Paintings reflect this custom of telling the bees.

Duckduckgo image search [telling the bees]

The Celts believed the bees were the connection between the spiritual and material worlds. If you have a message to transmit to a spirit then you would tell it to the bees to transmit. 

Man, those guys had imagination. 

This was all before movies and radio and television, and way before cable and Netflix, Hulu and the internet. 

How in the world would such a custom develop?

There would be a practical side to it. 

When the head of household, often the beekeeper, sloughed these surly chains, the family must pick up the bee tending. The custom forces the issue. The family cannot be so overtaken by loss that the apiary functions are neglected. So get out out there and verbalize your loss, then pick up fully where the beekeeper left off. The practice reinforces the relationship between the family and the bees. 

Searching for images by [tell it to the bees] leads to a British drama about a woman and her son who form a connection with the town's new doctor. The doctor introduces the boy to beekeeping and invites him to tell his secrets to the bees. The female doctor and the mother form a taboo relationship. 

Comments on Rotten Tomatoes are hilarious for their presumptuous critical insight similar to descriptions of wines.  

Also this unrelated: 

That's exactly how I felt. What do birds defying nature and doing it with bees unproductively, or birds incubating fertilized eggs outside their bodies, or a queen bee producing a hive full of female worker bees and a few uni-task drones in any way help explain human sex? The phrase never did make any sense.