As recounted in Wikipedia, “telling the bees is a traditional custom of many European countries in which bees would be told of important events in their keeper’s lives, such as births, marriages, or departures and returns in the household. If the custom was omitted or forgotten and the bees were not “put into mourning” then it was believed a penalty would be paid, such as the bees leaving their hive, stopping the production of honey, or dying.” Is there intuitive wisdom in this practice, or just superstition?

There are elements of both here. Intuitive wisdom caused this custom to originate because people in a more gentle era, when more were believers in the divine and were closer to nature as well, would often sense the interplay of divine energies with aspects of Gaia, in addition to the people in one's life. This is why in prior eras there was much talk about the elementals—the pixies, fairies, elves and gnomes, for example—and a greater appreciation for the thoughts and feelings of animals and even plant life, all of which has consciousness. These will, indeed tune in to human beings in the area and will have a sense of their alignment or misalignment, with respect to being in harmony with Gaia, which is the number one criterion for all living things on your planet. In a sense, it is like the ultimate hierarchy of the family. In thinking about Gaia, you are including not only your blood relations, but the extended family of all living things throughout nature, as well as the foundational matter in the makeup of the earth itself. So it is normal operating procedure for living things to check in to the environment to gauge what is out and about, what is in near proximity, what is its makeup, whether it is friend or foe, and so on. People who keep bees on the premises, as was true of many, many, homes in the old country throughout history, and true today in many farms, led to many circumstances when there was a close interrelationship and a harmonious coexistence, and even interdependence of bees and their keepers. Among the human cohort, there was intuitive awareness that the bees were not simply some lower order of life form that was inconsequential, except as being advantageous for making money. Intuitively, people sensed there was more of a partnership, but sharing an awareness and in a sense, a kind of fellowship in recognizing both species were part of something bigger and had their place and a role to play that involves maintaining a relationship. This was not terribly explicit on the human side, but was seen as a matter of course for the honeybee, that there were sympathetic fellow creatures to be aware of and to have a relationship with, to some extent, through an exchange of consciousness. It is in that way that bees sense human thoughts and feelings. Bees are more open intuitively than human beings and are quite keen in their perceptions. They can tell who is friend and who is foe. More than just sensing their physical proximity, they can tell if it is someone who knows them and they have interacted with before, just energetically. That level of sophistication is the reason for the intuitive perception that bees might care what's going on in the human household on the property. They take an interest in everything going on around them. Their primary goal and motivation is for perpetuation of their colony, but they don't do that in a vacuum as a unitary, isolated, endeavor solely focused on themselves and their own well-being. They seek harmony with Gaia and that includes considering their neighbors and other aspects of their existence in terms of other creatures they encounter in their daily activities, and so on. To be sure, some of the notions that people have developed, that bees will mourn along with them someone's passing, are an exaggeration. The bees will perceive it and note it, but not be as concerned as their human fellow travelers, as they are matter-of-fact about life and death and not worried about it. They take life as it comes, unless they are perturbed in some way that is a true threat to their existence. They do have built-in means to fight back, as you know, they can be aroused into aggressive behavior and they have a stinger backed by a reservoir of venom that can be quite painful and more debilitating for smaller creatures than humans, at least. So it is this attunement to humans and their thoughts that make these quite special. This is a deliberate divinely implemented fine-tuning to make the species compatible, because they share a destiny together, they contribute meaningfully to one another in a kind of symbiotic relationship that serves both cultures. Humans might harvest their honey, but the trade-off is they get human protection from other predatory creatures that might destroy their nests and prevent any stability, whereas humans will provide housing for beehives and make sure they are cared for. To the extent they can offer things for the betterment of their bee colonies, there is an instinctive awareness and appreciation for one another built into both humans and the bees themselves, in how they think and feel, that promotes getting along and sharing the environment in very productive ways.