The custom mentioned by L. L. L. still prevails in the Weald of Surrey
and Sussex; probably through all the southern counties; but certainly in
the Isle of Wight, where the writer only the other day, on noticing an
empty apiary in the grounds of a villa, was told that the country people
attributed its desertion to the bees not having had this formal notice
of their master's death.
The same superstition is practised in some parts of France, when a
mistress of the house dies; the formula being much like our English one,
_i.e._ to tap thrice on the hive, repeating these words, "Petits
abeilles, votre maîtresse est morte."