Podcasts Culture Between the Ears Telling the Bees

Telling the Bees

Published: March 22, 2021, 2:32 p.m.

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Maria Margaronis surrenders to the life of the hive to explore the ancient folk customs around the telling the bees.

The lives of bees and humans have been linked ever since the first hominid tasted a wild hive\\u2019s honey. Neither domesticated nor fully wild, honey bees are key to our survival, a barometer of our relationship with nature. Without them, we\\u2019d have no fruit, no nuts and seeds, and eventually, no food. No bees; no songbirds. Silent woods.

For centuries, we\\u2019ve projected stories and beliefs onto these strange, familiar creatures, seeing them as messengers between this world and the next. In this Covid-wracked year, Maria Margaronis explores the old customs of \\u201ctelling the bees\\u201d about a death or significant event, lest they grow angry and leave us. She enters the sonic world of the hive to hear what the bees might be telling us in the company of wise bee guides like Toxteth\\u2019s Rastafarian Barry Chang, Mississippi's Ali Pinion, Lithuania's Paulius Chockevicius and young beekeeper Zhivko Todorov in London\\u2019s busy Finsbury Park. Others tell us and their bees their significant news. Follow bee tellers and bee callers on a seasonal journey from summer through winter into spring, tuning in to to the hum of the hive and the buzz of the universe.

Recorded binaurally.

Producer: Mark Burman\\nAdditional bee recordings: Mark Ferguson

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