The Bees of Notre Dame

A Challenge to Europe

One hundred feet below the burning spire of the Notre Dame de Paris rested three beehives filled with 180,000 Brother Adam bees on the roof of the sacristy.

On a tragic day in April 2019 when the cathedral burst into flames, while firefighters attempted, seemingly in vain at times, to extinguish the burning timbers buttressing the cathedral roof, the European bees were intoxicated by the smoke.

When in danger, rather than abandoning their hives, the bees gorge themselves on their honey and refuse to leave, risking the melting of their honeycomb homes. They remain to protect their queen at all costs; they do not abandon her and she does not flee.

Like the prayers of the world and the Ave Maria sung in unison at the foot of the burning symbol of Christendom, the smoke rose to the heavens and Notre Dame seemed lost. Would she even survive the blaze? Most thought she would not.

Yet, after the fires were extinguished and firefighters breached the doors to the sanctuary, the cross at the altar gleamed in the probing light. The Pieta, blackened by smoke, the symbol of the greatest sacrifice in history, still stood in gathering place of the faithful who for centuries had come to assist in the worship of the divine.

Like the queen bee in her hive on the sacristy roof, Notre Dame de Paris survived the fire. Charred wood from the collapsing timbers lay at the foot of the cross sacrificed in the blaze. Yet the walls and altar still remained, defying the odds.

Several days after the fire, satellite images showed that the bees survived the estimated 1470 degree Fahrenheit inferno as well. Their hives were preserved and the worker bees swarmed across the Gothic gargoyles having never deserted their queen. Drone footage of the roof showed that the active bees carried pollen on their feet into the hives, a testament that the queen had survived and was giving life to baby bees.

The hives of Brother Adam bees were installed on the rooftops of Notre Dame in 2013 and were managed by the company Beeoptic who also managed approximately 350 of the 700 hives of bees on the rooftops of Paris.

Brother Adam bees are the life’s work of Brother Adam, Karl Kehrle, who was born in Germany and at the age of eleven was sent by his mother to reside at the Buckfast Abbey in England where he joined the Benedictine order. He showed an early interest in beekeeping. In 1915, a parasite originating on the Isle of Wight devastated the native bee populations in England and in 1916 killed thirty of the forty six bee colonies at the abbey.

In his quest to reestablish the bee colonies at the abbey's apiary Brother Adam traveled to Turkey to evaluate the bee populations in that region. His travels throughout his lifetime would take him all over Europe, the Near East, and Northern Africa where he went to assess bee populations and select bee specimens various desirable qualities.

In 1919, he established a breeding station in Dartmoor where he continued to pursue the creation of a bee with ideal qualities. The result was the Brother Adam Buckfast bee known for its mild temperament and the ability to produce large amounts of honey. The Brother Adam bee became the ideal species to reestablish the bee colonies in Europe and thus beehives were established in rooftops around the continent.

After the flames tore through the great cathedral, the Brother Adam bees presented a symbolic challenge to the nation of France. They challenged the nation to rival their protective instincts and their persistence in the face of danger, their bravery if you will.

These Brother Adam bees challenged the faith of a nation: would France abandon their Queen---the Queen of Heaven?

Would France abandon the symbol of its heritage and the civilization that honored the divine or would the nation rise up, taking the risk, to defend its queen, Le Notre Dame?

Would the nation, like the surviving bees, be mesmerized by the prayers and anthems rising like smoke to the heavens and save their Queen?

This question has not yet been resolved. It is a challenge which faces not only France, but Europe as a continent.

Will Europe abandon all of its roots in Christendom amidst the flames that now attempt to turn civilization to ash or will it remember its glory of the past and rise to reclaim them ?

The hour is late.

Ave Maria.