‘No living creature, not even man, has achieved in the center of his sphere, what the bee has achieved’
-Maurice Maeterlinck in The Life of the Bee (1901)
Today, on the occasion of World Honey Bee Day 2018, this observation by Maurice Maeterlinck assumes great significance. We should learn a few lessons from the bees, ‘a few’ because they offer so much to observe, understand and emulate. The creativity and minimalism associated with every phase of their life is actually a string of lessons for humans to follow. The honey bees have a well defined purpose of collective existence and a very small life to achieve that objective. A ‘small life’ is a life span of just about fifty five days for the worker bees, but it is a small life of immense activity rather than a long life of monotonous idleness. Immediately after emerging as an adult they start to work. The functions are age related and generally correlated with the physiological development of their various glands. All the activities which are performed by the honey bee whether it is cleaning the cells, feeding the larvae, producing wax or royal jelly, maintaining hive temperature, constructing comb or foraging for nectar, pollen and water or any other work – they always put in all their energies to the task.
Contributing ceaselessly for a defined purpose, they generally breathe their last during the flight. This will surely remind us of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’:‘Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die’Honey bees work day and night. For them the perceptions of time are meaningless. They neither delegate the assignments nor do they flutter away from the genetically assigned task. In contrast, humans generally look for the first opportunity to get away from their responsibilities.In the hive thousands of worker bees cling together and work as a cohesive unit. Efforts are always made by all – irrespective of age and the contribution of each member is equally significant. Apparently, there is no program evaluation and review, no critical path training, none to monitor the progress, no one for course corrections, no chain of command and no protocols. In reality, everything is so well ingrained in their system. They never fritter away their energies or resources.Simply observing them work as a collective group will surely impart attributes of patience, purpose, trust, co-existence, optimism, endeavor, commitment, creativity and much more. In contrast, it is difficult to visualize ten thousand or even greater number of humans living and working together in perfect unison for a common purpose. The strength that the numbers provide to the honey bees is sure to create differences, confusion and virtual anarchy in case of humans.
Devastated by our recklessness and restricted by environmental degradation, honey bees are swiftly fading away from the face of the earth. They are now desperately in need of an improved environment, better sensitivity and immediate support. We must accept the fact that they are perfect indicators of a balanced environment, critical for a healthy ecosystem and indispensable for the continuation of the human race.
To ignore them even now is to await an untimely apocalypse.
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