In 1858, New England quaker John Greenleaf Whittier published a poem in The Atlantic about grief. In sparse verses, he tells of a home where the lady of the house has passed away. A “chore-girl” in mourning goes to the family apiary and drapes “each hive with a shred of black.” She’s come to tell the hives’ inhabitants the terrible news: “Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence! / Mistress Mary is dead and gone!” Strange though it may sound, the custom of telling the bees about a death…
