What We Can Learn from Honeybees (Humanity 101 with Honeybees)
Love or hate them, honeybees are important insects that contribute significantly to our diet. Beyond the delicacies they provide, there’s a lot to learn from an insect that spends its day fully focused on fulfilling its life’s purpose. What in the world can a honeybee teach you? From teamwork to hard work, here are a few excellent values humans would do well to borrow a leaf or two:
1) Teamwork and efficiency in the division of labor
A single colony can hold up to eighty thousand bees, and they all contribute to the overall running of the hive. Worker bees split chores among themselves with various groups taking charge of cleaning, foraging, building, temperature control, and guard duty. Everyone carries out their designated roles to perfection, with the more experienced bees teaching new workers how to go about their daily duties. Individuals work in sync for the better of the hive, and every part of the whole comes together seamlessly. Implementing such a strategy in your work or school project can have amazing results.
2) Honeybees seize opportunity
Honeybees never let that door of opportunity swing shut. Whenever they get a chance, they make food for the future even if they have a full hive with little space left. A typical worker bee spends the entirety of sunlight outdoors foraging for pollen or nectar wherever it lies. They never let an opportunity pass them by, and we should strive to be the same. Bees teach us to make hay while the sun shines, and go that extra mile even when we seemingly don’t need to. In a way, they also teach us not to procrastinate as well.
3) Living affordably and planning for the future
A bee’s only resources are those it gathers. It doesn’t have the convenience of credit cards or banks, so it depends solely on what it can scrap together. Yet, they still manage to make enough food not only for the population in the hive but also for posterity. Consequently, bees have shown us how to live within our means. You don’t need to live your life on loans; you should aim to be happy with what you have.
4) Hard work
Nothing comes easy for bees. A single trip may involve visiting close to 100 flowers and more than 6 miles of flying. A hive in totality may fly more than 55,000 miles to produce one pound of honey from more than 2 million flowers! Bees have fittingly become the reference for hard work in modern society. These industrious insects seemingly never get tired until the job is done; the same should apply to us.
5) Bees have no problem sharing
Many animals out in the world are territorial with their food source. Leopards, for instance, have a strong sense of territory and would fight to the death with other leopards to ensure no competition in what they perceive to be their hunting ground. Honeybees have no such problem; they share flowers with other insects with no qualms.
6)Bees give back just as much as they take
Honeybees also have relationship advice to offer. While they feed on flowers for nectar and pollen, they also give something back: they help with pollination. Consequently, we should learn to give as much as we receive. One act of kindness deserves another. If you are constantly on the receiving end of a relationship, make an effort to return the favor.
7) Honesty
Honeybees are incapable of lying; their biological construct is structured so that they communicate exactly what they perceive. There’s no room for dishonesty, and they communicate clearly via pheromones and vibrations. We should strive not to lie to the people in our lives, instead say what we mean without deception.
8) Selflessness
A sting is fatal for the honeybee, yet it wouldn’t think twice about using it to defend the hive from a threat. It’s ready to put its life on the line for the safety of others in the hive and has no sense of ego but only a sense of duty. We should tailor our actions with other people in mind. Think about what you do before you do it, and how it will affect other people. It always helps to picture yourself in someone else’s shoes before you go ahead with something.
Be more like honeybees!
The world would be a better place if human beings emulated more of these important values mirrored in the lives of honeybees. Our productivity would be up, teamwork would improve, and we would learn to be mindful of others. Honeybees spend their day showing us how to live life the right way, and it would be nice if we could learn to listen.
