In the lush summer meadows of central West Virginia, a handful of bright, glowing insects bob and flutter among the wildflowers, buzzing gently. Now a rare sight, Appalachian fields once hummed with these luminescent creatures; shining balls of color, they drifted in wobbly yet orderly lines from holes in the ground. A tangle of light in the early morning, they dispersed on a mission; the small, flying puffs of fur bumped into doors, hovered by windows, and circled impatiently around beekeepers.
Meet the Messenger Bee, a remarkable member of the Apidae family, the family of bumblebees. Once a good friend of humankind, it is not just any bumblebee.
Messenger Bees are a type of organism known as an AOS: an Animal of Superstition. AOS' are magically engineered animals linked to omens and foresight. They are the origins of superstitions, old wives' tales, and expressions. Some AOSes are linked to danger (Red AOS) or fortune (Green AOS), but Messenger Bees are generally inconsequential and part of everyday life, a Blue AOS. All Animals of Superstition are experiments and creations of ancient fae.
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A working bumblebee's day-to-day activity supports the growth of flowering plants, making them indispensable to nature and agriculture. It is no surprise then, that elves captured and domesticated a collection of the bugs for gardening, food, work, and with greater plans in mind, long, long ago.
With fae technology, the bees were altered and programmed with new behaviors and organs, like a well; wells are organs responsible for AOSes' supernatural characteristics and generate energy known as magic. Messenger bees functioned as a notification system for communities and homesteads, alerting keepers of upcoming happenings through color codes and assisting with gardens.
As fae populations declined, Messenger Bee apiaries fell into disrepair, abandoned by a disappearing culture. The bees returned to the wild, only to be ravaged by magic-eating creatures. The Messenger Bee had to adjust to their new environment; only the Queen retained magical properties, hiding within a well-protected hive. Their development lessened their predation but not their programming. They desired a keeper.
The bees soon found something promising: humans. Testing bonds with group after group, the bees finally settled to befriend those who allowed them in their gardens and did not swipe, swat, or bother their nest. Discovering the insect's talents by observation and study or learning pieces of history from old freefolk, bee and man developed a unique, symbiotic relationship.
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Messenger Bees are native to modern-day east and midwestern North America. There are over 20 bumblebee species in the eastern United States alone, so correctly recognizing one can be difficult. A bee's appearance is a form of protection that benefits all of beekind—a painful sting or angry hive teaches predators to avoid any yellow and black striped, flying insect, regardless of it being a bumblebee, wasp, hornet, or honeybee; this phenomenon is called Müllerian mimicry, and it can make bees challenging to identify.
First, wasps and bees have similar appearances but are easily distinguished if you know what to look for. Bees are thicker, rounder, and less likely to sting. Wasps can sting many times, but bees only once. Bees have furry legs, and wasps have smooth legs. Wasps can be observed feeding on other insects or meat, whereas bees are found eating pollen (and carrying it on their legs).
Honeybees and bumblebees can be trickier to distinguish. Bumblebees are bulkier and fluffier than honeybees; they also have fewer stripes and rounder abdomens.
Divided into two species--an event-predicting bee, the Visitor Bee, and a weather-predicting bee, the Forecasting Bee--Messenger Bees are almost identical to their ancestor, the rusty patched bumblebee, only slightly larger and differently colored. It is possible but difficult to differentiate them from each other and unrelated bumblebees; it requires getting very close to the insect without scaring or threatening it.
These three species of bee are most easily identifiable outside of 'glow times' by the patch of color that appears on the second segment of their abdomen (the "butt" of the bee); a colorful band is proceeded and followed by a yellow stripe. The Rusty bee's patch is described as having a hue ranging from a vibrant brown to a dull orange. The Visitor Bee's patches are dull white or cream, and the Weather Bee's is dangerous red. Yet, other bumblebees can have similar traits—like the brown-belted bumblebee (whose second segment is brown or "rusty" but next to a black stripe) or the tri-colored bumblebee (who has two orange segments). When in doubt, a second trait can provide an ID with certainty: the "thumb-tack." If the bee is Rusty or a Visitor Bee, on the bee's back, between the wings, there will be an oval with a point in the middle—a shape like a thumbtack. Other bees may lack a design here, have a circle, or also display a thumbtack. Weather Bees have blank backs.
Glow times, an hour before sunrise and an hour after sunset, are the easiest times to find Messenger Bees. Glowing one of many colors, a hive without a keeper will pulsate a shimmering, ghostly gray, buzzing in a chaotic ball near the entrance to their den. Kept Bees will blink multiple colors or shine a solid hue, zooming off in the same direction each day or night. In the last 20 years, only 22 wild Messenger Bees have been reportedly encountered, and only in West Virginia. Hurt by the same threats other bees face - pesticides, habitat loss, invasive species, diseases spread by commercial bees, and climate change - Messenger Bees have a more complicated and tragic backstory.
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Long ago, families would cultivate complex, sprawling gardens, not just for their own sustenance but to foster a harmonious relationship with magical bees. Messenger Bees were a staple of rural life. Quickly re-domesticated, Messenger Bee lessons, and later, manuals, were commonplace, appearing even in editions of the Farmer's Almanac. Everyone knew how the little bugs worked and how to care for them.
Messenger Bees are attracted to bountiful vegetation and plant diversity. Wild hives can be lured to a plot of land by tending extensive gardens with several species of flowers, herbs, and vegetables; the bees also enjoy spaces where grasses are permitted to grow high and plentiful, with flowering bushes, and varying trees.
When an unbonded hive is drawn near, they may be befriended by constructing a bee box in the garden's center, set below ground. In exchange for a place to live and protection from dangers, the bees would make gardens flourish, helping produce grow larger, tastier, and more numerous. In return for a second year of mutual benefit, the bees would then begin providing invaluable insights, such as the next day's weather forecast or the arrival of unannounced guests.
Messenger Bees were trusted companions, more relied upon than the family dog. Their presence was seen as a blessing, a sign that the household was in tune with nature. Children grew up learning to respect and understand these gentle insects, viewing them as magical friends who brought promises of excitement and glimpses of their future.
It was common to see these bees flying in and out of homes, delivering messages through a comforting display of colored lights. If a message couldn't be delivered in the evening, the bees would try again in the morning until at least one household member acknowledged the communication by nodding, speaking to the bee, or smiling.
Though loyal, the bond between a home and a hive could be easily broken; relying on mutual respect, if any bee is mistreated by one they are kept by, even accidentally, the colony will abandon the property. The bees will not only act aggressively towards those they feel have wronged them, but they will also communicate their distrust and dislike with other Messenger Bees, causing them to act with violence. The bees remember and do not forgive; it is said that generations born after a broken bond will respond negatively to a former keeper's descendant if they share a similar appearance.
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In Messenger Bee hives, all the power is held by the Queen. Not only mother to all of the hive's workers and drones, she is also the sole source of magic. Yet, for Visitor Bees, this magic is generally useless; she can only detect when the hive will face a significant threat and sense when a potential keeper is near. Forecasting Bee Queens, however, developed larger wells, and, consequently, have more magical power; while they can deliver weather and crop forecasts to a keeper, she can do the same for her hive.
The bee hive is broken down into five castes: Queens, drones (males that tend to the Queen), workers (females that gather food, care for the Queen's young, and occasionally lay eggs of their own), larvae (babies that must be fed pollen and nectar), and messengers (the glowing bees seen during glow times, the only males who leave the nest outside of mating season, and the deliverers of the Queen's predictions to the hive and its keepers). At the end of the day, messengers gather around the Queen, forming a line. Less than ten total, each stands with its back to its Queen as she ruffles his white or red patch of fur; the hair's color changes depending on her message.
For Visitor Bees, the colors are cool tones that denote tomorrow's visitors:
black for an enemy or unwelcome guest, gray for an unknown visitor, dark blue for a visitor with sad news, light blue for family, teal for a good friend, light green for a romantic interest, and dark green for no visitors. If multiple messages need to be conveyed, the colors flicker in five-second intervals. For Forecasting Bees, warm tones represent tomorrow's weather and conditions: white for snowy, tan for frost, yellow for sunny, orange for windy, red for stormy, reddish-purple for severe storms, and pink for cloudy. For exceptionally gifted Forecasting Queens, the order of weather events can be communicated by gradual color-shifting patches or blinking colors.
Historically, Messenger Bees were kept by farming families and mountain folk. Things went south in the late 18th and early 19th centuries as opinions on magic, spells, and ancient practices soured and fears soared. As tales of evil spellcasters and dark magic spread, the people began to feel they would be hurt, tricked, or corrupted by simply being near anything from the Old World, even organisms, places, and things vaguely connected to magic. Messenger Bees became associated with malevolent forces; at the height of anti-magic panic, the bees were believed by some to be a dangerous risk: leading one to become a monster's dinner, new skin, or potion ingredient; tales spread that the bees could be used to spy on others' thoughts, or, more nefariously, slowly alter their opinions and beliefs.
Rumors began circulating that those who kept Messenger Bees were in league with monsters, using the bees' predictive powers for evil, unknown purposes, out of pure malice. The once-cherished insects became symbols of suspicion and dread. In a wave of hysteria, countless hives were destroyed, sometimes by their own keepers, desperate to be accepted back into their communities or, at the very least, not viewed as an enemy. Those who would not turn against the bees were not met with understanding; and, as for the bees, all that were found were burned, smashed, and eradicated to root out perceived evils.
The loss was profound. Not only did these actions decimate the Messenger Bee population, their numbers continued to dwindle as they struggled to survive without protection - and as they encountered bee hunters. The last remaining colonies were wild and in unsettled land; they had been without keepers, never redomesticated. Consequently, lightning bugs also saw a steep decline; the hunt began in the summer, and confusion about what counted as a messenger bee or magical creature abounded.
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Efforts to restore and protect Messenger Bees have gained momentum in recent decades. Conservationists, folklorists, and cryptozoologists have documented sightings of wild Messenger Bees, popularizing and revitalizing their story, and renewing interest in their preservation.
Today, only a few kept hives exist, and wild Messenger Bees are a rare sight, on the brink of extinction. Conservation programs, like the BCWPA's, aim to protect their habitats, educate the public about their importance, encourage the creation of bee-friendly environments, and foster breeding programs. You can help by advocating for habitat restoration, planting native flowers, and creating safe environments for hives to thrive.
With public awareness, education, and teamwork, it is believed that this glowing, fuzzy bug bumble can be restored in our grasslands and ensure that their story doesn't end here.
If you'd like to learn more about Messenger Bees and their lives, how to make an ID, attract and care for a hive, how to help with conservation, and more about their lives, visit www.ballyraven.com/encyclopedia/messenger-bee.
