So while this custom seems perhaps superstitious and frivolous, it carries actual layers of meaning and importance, because animal husbandry, even insect husbandry, is steeped richly in tradition and knowledge handed down across generations, for millennia, more than we can even comprehend.
I ask because I’d love to keep bees myself someday and the relationships people have with bees are something I don’t know well, or don’t understand, but am fascinated by. (The tradition linked for this thread is one I’m familiar with, for example — but what I don’t know is what makes people believe it. What is the experience of beekeeping that leads people to believe bees understand?) It’s one primary reason I’m keen to become a beekeeper, to experience and to learn. I’d love to hear whatever you have to say.