Poor Bees

St. Gobnait, patron of beekeepers,
Pray for us!

Winter is setting in with a vengeance the next few weeks. Tonight the temps are expected to drop to single digits and for the next few weeks we will mostly see highs only in the 30s. That means the bees are clustered and can't break out to eat or fly. (Even bees need to go potty.)

 The temps aren't the only things impacting the bees. It's supposed to be grey and mostly cloudy in coming days. That means no sun warming up the hives internally. So they will be clustered and if the food is too far away they can literally starve to death.

These are the days I turn to all the patron saints of bee keepers and those who kept bees. St. Ambrose and St. Valentine are patrons, but there are others. St. Isidore the Farmer probably knew the value of bees for pollination and maybe even kept some.


St. Francis de Sales talks about bees so much in his sermons I suspect he grew up around beekeepers. St. Gobnait (Gaelic for Abigail) is often called Deborah, the English rendering of her name, which means "honeybee." Today I'm asking St. Gobnait to intercede for all the girls that the winter will not be too hard on them. We always rejoice in the spring to see the girls flying and to know they made it through another winter.

When I make my tea with honey later I will praise God for our honeybees. They reminded St. Gobnait of the Resurrection. They also remind me of the hope that bitterness and cold hearts can thaw and the future always holds consolation, sweeter than the honeycomb.