Bee Mine

St. Valentine is obviously most associated with love. He married Christian couples in secret, when Christianity was illegal in Rome. But, he is the patron of more than love and marriage.

He is a patron of those suffering from fainting, epilepsy, plague, and mental illness (he was a physician and cared for the sick). He has also been a patron of beekeepers since as early as 496.

Beekeeping is one of those trades that used to be more common. Before we had industrial sugarcane and corn syrup, honey was the best sweetener. It was common for the bees to live among us; they got pollen and protection in our gardens, and we got wax and honey.

Honey is an almost magical substance. It contains essential vitamins and minerals. It can be harvested year-round. It can be preserved indefinitely. When the Israelites longed for the “land of milk and honey,” they longed for a place of unending nourishment, both physical and spiritual.

I don’t think St. Valentine kept bees himself. St. Modomnoc did.

St. Modomnoc was born in Ireland in the 500s. He was a missionary priest and a disciple of St. David of Wales. It’s possible his name was really Dominic but he was so often called “my Dominic” or “mo (little) Dominic” that his name evolved into Modomnoc.

Modomnoc was the beekeeper for his monastery in Wales. The monks used the bees for their honey and wax. It was said that Modomnoc cared well for the bees and that they never stung him. He talked to them like friends. When he was returning to Ireland, three times the bees swarmed, following him to the boat and settling on the mast.

The custom of “telling the bees” of important family matters (birth, marriage, death) is thought to come from Modomnoc and his bees.  

St. Modomnoc’s feast day is Feb. 13, just a day before St. Valentine’s. That seems appropriate, and I want the bees and their keepers to be my valentine this year. 

If you ever find yourself in an ecological talk with me, you’ll undoubtedly hear about frogs, bees, and Monarch butterflies. I worry about them. Where have they gone? I’m not that old, and I’m not that far from the place of my birth. But I remember running into frogs, bees, and butterflies all the time in my childhood summers. And then somewhere along the way, they just… disappeared. I've gone years in my adult life without seeing a Monarch butterfly. There's a nostalgic sadness to that, but then there's the much more unsettling reality as to why. 

Habitat destruction, pesticides, air pollution, and climate change have all affected the small creatures that I used to take for granted. The bee population dropped significantly in the 20th century. And for those that survive, colony collapse is more common, and there's pesticides in the honey. No one longs for the land of soured milk and poisoned honey. Yet here we are. 

We cannot survive without bees. Bees perform about 80% of the world’s pollination. If there’s a flower, there’s a bee (and if there’s a bee, there’s a flower). Bee pollination sustains an enormous amount of plant life on Earth. No bees means stagnation, infertility, death. 

Fortunately, beekeepers have been working hard to save bees. In the U.S., bee populations have slowly been increasing since around 2008. Things are not ok, but there is hope that maybe, just maybe, we can appreciate our ecosystem enough to not destroy it. From the brink of catastrophe, beekeepers are caring for the little, industrious creatures who give the world flowers, sweetness, and life.

St. Valentine and St. Modomnoc, pray for them!