I just learned that bees will hum loudly at the stroke of midnight on Christmas Morning to celebrate the end of the Solstice and the rebirth of the Sun. It used to confuse some Christian beekeepers who were like, “How do the bees know about JESUS?”

But wait!

“This folklore persisted through to Christian times, with folk tales in Scotland and England stating that bees would hum loudly at midnight on Christmas Day for the Savior’s birth. When the new Gregorian calendar was adopted in 1752, 11 days were removed and the fact that the bees could not be heard humming on the new Christmas Day was taken as a sign of God’s displeasure at the changes!”

Y’all, we are living so wrong.

“This is where the beekeeper treated their bees as extended members of their own family and kept them informed of any family news in the household. Beekeepers also needed to talk to the bees in calm voices and never use harsh words for fear of upsetting the bees. Marriages, new births and especially deaths were marked by decorating the hive and telling the bees what had happened.

The death of the beekeeper required the new beekeeper to introduce themselves formally as their new owner and ask for their acceptance as their new master/mistress. It was said that not doing this would encourage the bees to desert the hive or the colony to stop producing honey or even die and is a tradition that we encourage new beekeepers to continue today.”