[HN Gopher] Telling the Bees ___________________________________________________________________ Telling the Bees Author : drdee Score : 199 points Date : 2021-09-27 04:55 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org) (TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org) | [deleted] | elliottkember wrote: | This is a very sweet way of coping with death. | | I think all of these other comments are focussing on the aspects | of "upsetting the bees" (which I think is a red herring) and not | seeing the therapeutic effects of a ritual. Saying things out | loud helps bring closure. This is people dealing with sadness. | | "Little bee, our lord is dead; Leave me not in my distress." | Y_Y wrote: | I'd like to be able to email the bees. I suppose it shouldn't be | so hard to have a GAN for translating from English into the dance | of the bees. | | Maybe the danger is in translating back and learning what they | know. The bees haven't read Ayn Rand, they're more a Hofstadter- | Theseus consciousness with many finite lifetimes making a macro- | scale Methuselah. They surely know about the Bronze Age Collapse, | what happened on Rapa Nui, why out ancestors came down from the | trees. | WriterGuy2021 wrote: | This could be seen as a metaphor for the practice of public | relations. Like when we learn about the president's dogs. Sounds | like a strange interpretation, I know, but folklore and various | traditions have been known to contain veiled wisdom. Also, the | behive has a lot of esoteric associations. | vilius wrote: | Bees to this day are very respected in Lithuania. A very close | friend can be being called "Biciulis" which is derived from a | word bee. As in "bee honey" = "Biciu medus". For english speakers | the pronunciation can sound a bit contraindicative BIH-LIs | davidw wrote: | Looks like 'medus' and 'mead' have the same root, offhand? | sanqui wrote: | Indeed. And the Lithuanian word for 'bee', _bite_ , is also | cognate with the English word as per Wiktionary[1]. | | [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bit%C4%97#Lithuanian | riffraff wrote: | The proto-balto-slavic root for honey is "med", which is why | the word for bear is usually some variation of "medved", | meaning "honey eater", due to that weird process where | something scary becomes taboo and gets replaces with some | phrase. | | https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto- | Slavic... | flixic wrote: | The name wasn't based on bees just because bees are respected. | "Biciulyste" (meaning friendship, using the same word Biciulis) | was usually a neighbor friendship with a particular purpose: to | take care of bees communally. | h2odragon wrote: | We look at individual humans as pretty smart; but then the | collective intelligence of a human city as pretty dim. We see | individual bees as pretty dim; but perceive intelligence and | agency in the swarm. | | Many species of bee live individually or in small groups. Are | Carpenter bee tribes searching for the secret of fire? They're | certainly industrious enough. | Dumblydorr wrote: | What would bees use fire for? Humans used it to create more | edible food, for metallurgy, generate warmth, etc. I'm not sure | if bees would need that, since honey is energy dense, they have | built in weapons, and they sort of hibernate in the cold. And | they don't have the ability to stoke and generate fire do they, | human hands and cognition are useful fire tenders. | | Maybe given millions of years of further evolution, bees or | ants could become more capable in their culture? | EamonnMR wrote: | What would bees use fire for? Same thing they use everything | for: education. Specifically teaching all other animals not | to mess with bees. | throwanem wrote: | If bees often seem to feel the need to teach you _that_ , | consider perhaps improving the diligence of your study. | xivzgrev wrote: | This is one of the reasons I love Hacker News - random and | interesting bits of information. I had heard of people talking to | plants, their pets, etc...but apparently bees too, and | particularly around deaths. | | Grasping at straws here, I could see bees being very routine- | oriented, and if a particular person (esp caretaker) was dead, | that could upset them because the routine is now different. Why | "telling" them appears to work is a mystery. | TimTheTinker wrote: | > Why "telling" them appears to work is a mystery. | | I think you're reading too much into myth and folklore. There's | no real evidence for these practices ... but there doesn't need | to be. It's not about whether the phenomenon is real, it's | about a fun myth. | LamdbaMamba wrote: | Well... maybe. Whenever I see folklore like this I always | suspect there are real effects but they may be attributed | incorrectly. For instance, an ancient Greek feels sick, and | worships at the temple of Apollo to ask the god to heal him. | The Greek starts feeling a bit better when they leave. Apollo | or the placebo effect? | | My first thought with telling the bees is that just speaking | our thoughts to an impartial third party can help ease our | burdens and make us feel better. Maybe it's a therapist, a | stranger at the bar, or a garden of bees. Now this doesn't | explain the supposed effect of bees dying/leaving if the | practice is not followed, but it could explain why the | practice continues. | tsimionescu wrote: | > Apollo or the placebo effect? | | Note that the placebo effect is not about real improvement | perceived by the sufferer except in a few very specific | symptoms (pain, high blood pressure, and some psychiatric | illnesses, mostly). In most cases, the placebo effect is | simply optimistic interpretation/collection of data by | people wanting to see the medicine work. | smaddox wrote: | I'm curious why you think this. Is there some research to | support this view? From what I've read, the placebo | effect seems quite real, with quite physical effects. And | the surgical placebo effect is stronger than the | medicinal placebo effect. | | It's not so absurd if you fully accept that the | connection between mind and body is bidirectional. | andyjohnson0 wrote: | Placebos aren't curative. It's well known that they can | affect a subject's _perception_ of how their condition is | progressing, and this may have physical consequences: | e.g. a reduction in psychological stress leading to | reduced blood pressure, etc. But the placebo won 't | affect the underlying condition. They don't make the | brain somehow cure the body. | | Quote: | | _" Placebos won't lower your cholesterol or shrink a | tumor. Instead, placebos work on symptoms modulated by | the brain, like the perception of pain. "Placebos may | make you feel better, but they will not cure you,"... | "They have been shown to be most effective for conditions | like pain management, stress-related insomnia, and cancer | treatment side effects like fatigue and nausea."_ | | https://www.health.harvard.edu/mental-health/the-power- | of-th... | tsimionescu wrote: | I am curious why you think that it is different. The base | assumption should always be that non-medicine have non- | effects - apart from perceived effects and the desire to | "co-operate" with the study (which is why we double-blind | tests are so important). | | [0] is a Cochrane study that looked at this. Quoting from | their conclusions: | | > We did not find that placebo interventions have | important clinical effects in general. However, in | certain settings placebo interventions can influence | patient-reported outcomes, especially pain and nausea, | though it is difficult to distinguish patient-reported | effects of placebo from biased reporting. The effect on | pain varied, even among trials with low risk of bias, | from negligible to clinically important. Variations in | the effect of placebo were partly explained by variations | in how trials were conducted and how patients were | informed. | | [0] https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/1465 | 1858.CD... | philwelch wrote: | There are multiple factors that contribute to the placebo | effect. The psychosomatic response is one of them. | "Optimistic interpretation/collection of data by people | wanting to see the medicine work" is another factor, but | one that's typically removed by double-blinding. With | some conditions, just plain reversion-to-the-mean is also | part of the placebo effect--if you take a pill to cure | your headache and your headache goes away, who's to say | the headache wouldn't have gone away of its own accord | anyway? | [deleted] | mkmk wrote: | Maybe it's as simple as a tradition that helps make sure | that nobody forgets to take care of the beehives (an | important part of a community's agricultural | infrastructure) when somebody dies or leaves the home (due | to marriage, etc.) | TimTheTinker wrote: | That's an excellent observation. | jrochkind1 wrote: | Referenced in the framing story at the beginning and end of _The | Bees_ by Laline Paull, which is a novel from the perspective of | bees that is really really good. | diskzero wrote: | My wife told me about this custom when we moved into a new house | and found a small bee hive in a hollow of an olive tree. We made | it a habit to give them updates about various events that | occurred and it became an important bonding event. She is now | critically ill and I am not looking forward to sharing her death | with our bees, but I'll do it as what I hope will be an important | part of closure and dealing with loss. The bees themselves have | been doing quite well and have spun off swarms several times. | They are docile non-Africanized bees and I hope they will | continue to keep making more bees for a long time! | 1cvmask wrote: | From another wikipedia link: | | "In mythology, the bee, found in Indian, ancient Near East and | Aegean cultures, was believed to be the sacred insect that | bridged the natural world to the underworld." | | "According to Hittite mythology, the god of agriculture, | Telipinu, went on a rampage and refused to allow anything to grow | and animals would not produce offspring. The gods went in search | of Telipinu only to fail. Then the goddess Hannahanna sent forth | a bee to bring him back. The bee finds Telipinu, stings him and | smears wax upon him. The god grew even angrier and it wasn't | until the goddess Kamrusepa (or a mortal priest according to some | references) uses a ritual to send his anger to the Underworld." | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_(mythology) | Igelau wrote: | This part interested me: | | > believed to be the sacred insect that bridged the natural | world to the underworld | | When we were kids, my brother and I would keep away from dead | bees because they "might come back to life". We had probably | been warned that the bee might be dormant, or that the | mechanism of the stinger can still trigger even after the bee | is dead. Maybe a friend gave us a mixed up version of the | facts. The way we had it set it in our heads was that dead bees | could come back to life. | throwanem wrote: | Vespid wasps, especially the family of hornets and | yellowjackets, have alarm pheromones. This is why it's a very | bad idea to kill a wasp: her sisters are likely to smell what | you did, and may come and try to kill you right back. | Damaging the body of a dead wasp can also release the | pheromone, eliciting the same response. | | I don't know that we need a just-so story to explain a | folkway around avoiding interference with the remains of | deceased hymenopterans, but if we do, this is probably the | strongest candidate. | mise_en_place wrote: | The bee was very important for Indo-Europeans, because honey | has a really good shelf life, a necessity when one is nomadic. | | From the Rig Veda I 154: "td'sy pri'ym'bhi paatho' ashyaaN' | nro' ytr' dev'yvo' md'nti / u'ru'kr'msy' s hi bndhu'ri'tthaa | vissnno': p'de p'r'me mdhv' uts': // tdsy priymbhi paatho | ashyaaN nro ytr devyvo mdnti / urukrmsy s hi bndhuritthaa | vissnnoH pde prme mdhv utsH // tad asya priyam abhi patho | asyam naro yatra devayavo madanti | urukramasya sa hi bandhur | ittha visnoh pade parame _madhva_ utsah ||" | | _Madhva_ seems to be an epithet for the Vedic Vishnu, Indra, | and later Krishna. The Sanskrit word for honey is _Madhu_ , | sharing the same root as _mead_. So you could loosely translate | it as "mead-sweetened". My hypothesis is that soma was not a | psychoactive drug but mead drank in a ritual context. | | The bee was so important to the Vedic religon that the earliest | iconography of Vishnu is simply a bee resting on a lotus | flower. This leads me to believe the Vedic non-Puranic Vishnu | was a mead swigging warrior, as opposed to the later Puranic | Vishnu/Krishna, who himself was likely a disciple/devotee of | Shiva as evidenced by his many Shiva rituals in the Bhagavad | Gita. | | It's hilarious to think how Krishna was retconned as Vishnu, | when he is himself a huge devotee of Shiva! | namanyayg wrote: | > Krishna was retconned as Vishnu | | I know that Krishna = Vishnu but never knew it was retconned. | What's the source? | mise_en_place wrote: | That's merely conjecture on my part. The two are quite | different based on their descriptions. The Vedic Vishnu is | described as a fierce warrior, like Varaha, a wild boar. | Krishna is way more calm, reasonable, and shall we say | crafty. The two also represent the shift from a hunter- | gatherer society to a more agrarian based society. | | Technically both Vishnu and Krishna are relatives, since | they both descend from Kashyap, so I could see why his | contemporaries saw him as the reincarnation of Vishnu. | MrZongle2 wrote: | Say what you want about bees; they know how to keep a secret. | retzkek wrote: | The Gardeners do this in Margaret Atwood's _Oryx and Crake_ | (MaddAddam trilogy), one character derives much comfort from | telling the bees. I didn 't know it was an actual custom, how | wonderful. I believe there's a certain wisdom in these old | customs, that helps keep humans connected with the non-human | world. | grilledcheez wrote: | I'm halfway through The Year of the Flood, loving the trilogy | so far. This post also made me think of Toby and old Pilar. | teachrdan wrote: | I used to be an adult ESL teacher and had students who had | immigrated to the US from all around the world. I mentioned this | practice one in class, and a student from Guatemala made clear | that, at least where he was from, people were still telling the | bees. I wonder if this is due to convergent evolution or colonial | influence? | | [0] I learned about telling the bees from the incredible Museum | of Jurassic Technology in LA: | https://www.mjt.org/exhibits/bees/bees.html | hmahncke wrote: | Great museum and a great exhibit! Really compelling description | of folks remedies in a way that respects the construction of | knowledge. | | Unfortunately the museum is still closed due to COVID, but | they've said they're not permanently closed... | pope_meat wrote: | Huh, I guess I know why my bees died now. But in my defense, I'm | a very private person. | axus wrote: | Kind of like the brown M&Ms; if you don't bother to notify the | bees, what else aren't you taking care of? | chatoyance wrote: | Superstitions around the world are interesting because they often | seem so completely arbitrary. | | IMHO, superstitions are ritual tribal beliefs, false knowledge, | overactive risk aversion, and false modesty. | dwmbt wrote: | how do you feel about personal superstitions, developed through | individual experience? in my household, before bed, i ask for | blessings from my parents and return the sentiment. i'm not | pious, nor even religious in the standard sense, but whenever i | forget to or don't have the chance, i feel terribly anxious, | like something terrible will happen to them/me overnight. i | know this comes off as irrational, but it makes me feel safe. | diskzero wrote: | I think they serve a purpose, which I hope is mostly | positive. I have my own as well. Some might be seen as | prayers or silent meditations. They help me feel better and | cope with stressful situations. I don't tell anyone about | these or force anyone to do them. Is is irrational? Maybe, | but it brings me peace without harming anyone or making the | world a worse place to live in. | _dain_ wrote: | That's a complete tautology. | scubbo wrote: | I heard of this from Granny Weatherwax. | | GNU Terry Pratchett. | zem wrote: | I learnt of it from Kipling's wonderful "Puck of Pook's Hill" | riffraff wrote: | Ah, I read the article and this seemed familiar, and I thought | it felt pratchett-ian. | | Now it makes sense :) ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-09-28 23:00 UTC)