The Host in the Hive

For the first time this year, the temperatures in St. John's finally got above 20 degrees. Last weekend was a glorious one, and lots of people spent quality time outdoors. So why did we light roaring fires in both our fireplaces on Sunday morning? Because bees are nesting in the chimney, and we're trying to encourage them to move on without having to break the masonry to remove them.

I have always been fascinated by bees. From Virgil's fourth Georgic, to the tradition of telling the bees, to Donald Duck cartoons, there's a lot to be said about them. The beekeepers I've met are remarkably gentle, laid-back people. They have to be, in order not to get stung. The line between wild animals and domesticated ones can be very blurred. Bees are raised like livestock, but they are completely free range. I'm reminded of a story that I came across as an undergraduate, while researching medieval devotion to the sacrament of the Eucharist.

A certain woman kept many bees, which throve not but died in great numbers; and, as she sought everywhere for a remedy, it was told her that if she placed the Lord's Body among them, this plague would soon cease. She therefore went to church and, making as though she would communicate, took the Lord's Body, which she took from her mouth as soon as the priest had departed, and laid it in one of her hives.

Mark the marvelous power of God! These little worms, recognizing the might of their Creator, built their sweetest Guest, out of their sweetest honeycombs, a chapel of marvelous workmanship, wherein they set up a tiny altar of the same material and laid thereon this most holy Body: and God blessed their labors.

In process of time the woman opened this hive, and was aware of the aforesaid chapel whereupon she hastened and confessed to the priest all that she had done and seen. Then he took with him his parishioners and came to the hive, where they drove away the bees that hovered round and buzzed in Praise of their creator; and, marveling at the little chapel with its walls and windows, roof and tower, door and altar, they brought back the Lord's Body with praise and glory to the church. For though God be marvelous in the saints, yet these His smallest creatures preached Him yet more marvelously.

At least one person has tried to create their own 'bee chapel'.

The thing that I like best about the story of the host in the hive is that it doesn't need to be literally, factually true. In a society where most people were illiterate, stories like these were easily told, easily remembered, and easily retold. They were the medieval version of urban legends. This one speaks to a truth that the Church would want to encourage.

This is not a story about how to get your bee colonies to thrive. The woman's attempt to use the sacrament as a magic talisman was something that she eventually confessed to her priest as a sin. One of the morals of the story is to resist the temptation to use religious symbols in a superstitious way. But it's also a story about what can happen when the sacrament is desecrated.

People in the Middle Ages lost a lot of sleep over this. A famous question of practical theology was what to do if a mouse got into the pyx where the reserved sacrament was kept and ate the host. In drafty medieval churches, this could be a real concern. The answer is surprisingly detailed: catch the mouse, kill it, burn it, and flush the ashes down the piscina into the consecrated ground.

The host in the hive is an important counterpoint to the mouse in the pyx. It's a story of how despite human irreverence, the natural order will still glorify God. Where we can take steps to keep animals away from the sacrament, we should, to save ourselves the struggle of hunting mice. But when things are out of our control, we can still trust that God will still be glorified, in spite of our negligence.

But it's also a great story about how clever, industrious, and even creative bees can be.