Generous

I am inspired to be my generous me, like the Western honeybee. The worker honeybee’s short life is a blessing to fellow workers, flowers, farmers, and honey-loving fans. Indeed, we all benefit from the sweet, nutrient rich syrup she produces by nature’s grand honeycomb plan. Now the honeybee colony is organized by complex communication both chemical via pheromones and physical via a special waggle dance language. And as colonies are persistent year after year, entire eu-social swarming units are considered super-organisms- brilliant examples of biological biomes. But before believing that all this social interaction is super intelligent, sweet and serene; it’s important to note that in the bee colony there is only one ruling queen. She will produce the rest of the hive offspring, including 12-24 daughter queens, who will fight to the death until only one buzzes on the honeycomb colony scene. And as for the gracious honeybee worker… Imagine sharing a polygonal shaped home with 10,000 other male drones; all vying for the attention of one other fertile female—the queen—her highness alone on the one hive throne. Imagine humble, hard-working honeybee you and 1,000’s of your fellow female worker kin—tirelessly secreting your wax to build the hive within — keeping the comb clean and guarding the queen’s eggs in enclosed cells, unseen. The queen—now she can reproduce for a couple of years, but you- you may remain alive for maybe 4 months, unless of course, you die early, by hooking your stinger to an invading foe while defending the hive in a flurry or stinging blow. Oh but your self-sacrifice, chores and responsibilities to the hive only begin here. You are also expected to deliver royal jelly to her highness, the queen, and to prepare bee-bread of pollen and nectar for the rest of your workers until you drop dead; and are easily replaced. But of course you also have to collect the pollen and nectar from your favorite flower companions. And here’s where that waggle dance comes into sharp evolutionary focus. As the busy bee worker takes a break from the hive and pilots the winds of the sky, visiting her favorite flowers by and by, she incidentally powders her companion plants in the gardens, orchards, and plains with a rump full of golden pollen grains. So attuned is her internal GPS compass mind, she can remember and recount the distance and vector of the path that she took, blind. And back to her generous nature, when her mission’s complete, the secret of her favorite flower stash, she does not keep. Instead of hoarding her sweet knowledge to herself, she does a special waggle dance in front of her mates to freely share where to go—where the best blossoms and flowers grow. Essentially, in a series of calculated figure eight moves and waggle dance grooves she communicates the distance and direction of her favorite flowers, fecund and flowing with pollen showers. Thus beyond the benefit for the hive, the good news to all flowers and fruit trees alive, is that their sweet- albeit short, romance also involves the honeybee’s selfless pollination of those, her prize expectant plants. Of course, for the many flower-loving and fruit-eating insects, birds, bats, and animals, including us; we are grateful for free pollination without fuss. Alas, in summary, the honeybee worker’s life amounts to one of great monk-like service– cleaning, protecting, and feeding the hive and bioregional home is her complete life purpose.

Note: Sensitive to the fragile and diminishing status of the western honeybee especially in the US and Europe (now on the IUCN Red List of threatened species), the EU has decided to cut chemical pesticide use by 50% and fertilizer use by 20% before 2030 as part of the union’s Biodiversity Plan. Now that’s a good country act for everyone to follow.

Reflection: How do you or can you give sweet honey to your community?

Challenge: Practice your orienteering skills by creating a map of your neighborhood and charting out a route through it to a secret treasure. Bury your treasure; then make a map labeling compass directions and distance marked out by your number of heal-toe footprints. Deliver your map to a friend, brother, or sister and challenge him to find your treasure.