The Royal beekeeper has informed the Queen’s bees of her death that King Charles is their new boss.
In an arcane tradition believed to date back centuries, John Chapple, the royal beekeper travelled to Buckingham Palace and Clarence House on Friday to notify the hives, kept in the grounds, that the Queen had died..
During the superstitious ritual using hushed tones, he also told the bees that King Charles is now their new boss and urged them to be good.
The Mail Online reports: He placed black ribbons tied into bows on the hives, home to tens of thousands of bees, before informing them that their mistress had died and that a new master would be in charge from now on.
He then urged the bees to be good to their new master – himself once famed for talking to plants.
The strange ritual is underpinned by an old superstition that not to tell them of a change of owner would lead to the bees not producing honey, leaving the hive or even dying.
Speaking from the Buckingham Palace gardens, Mr Chapple told Mailonline: ’I’m at the hives now and it is traditional when someone dies that you go to the hives and say a little prayer and put a black ribbon on the hive.
‘I drape the hives with black ribbon with a bow.
‘The person who has died is the master or mistress of the hives, someone important in the family who dies and you don’t get any more important than the Queen, do you?
‘You knock on each hive and say, ‘The mistress is dead, but don’t you go. Your master will be a good master to you.’
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