queen bee (10. 023)

Beekeeper Royal John Chapple reportedly has informed the hives that Elizabeth II has passed on and to be loyal and productive for her Majesty’s successor as part of a broader custom of telling the bees. Black ribbons were placed on the structures to let the million subjects (see also about the bees’ own royal fanfare) know of their new allegiance to a figure once ridiculed for talking to plants. It cannot be a bad courtesy to take the otherwise preparatory measures of “telling the bees” for good and wise council.