Thistle Honey

Bees have long been the winged guardians of nature.  Overlooked, they silently go about their monumentally important tasks without fanfare or applause.  In spite of that, or maybe because of that humble diligence, most ancient societies had a high regard for the bees, however, none more so than the Celts.

Regarded as messengers between worlds, Celts believed that bees carried traces of ancient wisdom like wisps of pollen passed one to the other, from this world to the next.  Perhaps because they believed in this ability to cross the threshold, the tradition of Telling the Bees has been passed down from generation to generation.  Oftentimes, families would share a piece of wedding cake with the hive, laying it out like a blessing from the happy couple. But most often, it was the beekeeping family's duty to make sure to tell the bees when anyone, especially their keeper, had passed away, imploring them not to swarm or fly away; reassuring them, as the messenger spoke in tender tones, that they would continue to be cared for and loved. 

Woven into this tradition is evidenced the love and regard for not only the honey and wax necessary for Highland life that the bees produced, but for the alluring and mysterious bees themselves.  Hear the tenderness toward the fragile creatures in the 1858 poem "Telling the Bees" by John Greenleaf Whittier:

"Before them, under the garden wall,

Forward and back,

Went drearily singing the chore-girl small,

Draping each hive with a shroud of black.

Trembling, I listened: the summer sun

Had the chill of snow;

For I knew she was

telling the bees of one

Gone on the journey we all must go!

And the song she was

singing ever since

In my ear sounds on-

'Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence!

Mistress Mary is gone!' "