In Kapandriti, near Athens, a beekeeper named Isidoros Timinis has a custom he has repeated for ten springs: he slips small icons of Christ, the Virgin, and various saints inside his hives.
And every year, the same thing happens. The bees build their honeycomb around the images, cell by cell, but never cover the painted faces. An Orthodox monk named Simon tried something similar with an icon of the Crucifixion: the bees covered with wax the thief who rejected Christ, but left the face of Jesus and that of the ‘good thief’ uncovered.
No one has managed to explain it with certainty. There is no scientific study confirming why these bees, year after year, avoid precisely those faces. Only the photos remain, and the open question of whether it is pure chance in the texture of the paint or something we still do not fully understand.
