Bees Can Teach Us How to Live and Work
Have you ever thought about bees as your life or career coaches? As an aspiring beekeeper, I’m fascinated by how these incredible creatures live and work. Their hives are a model combination of structure and flexibility.
Experts versus generalists
Some bees are genetically predisposed to have certain talents making them suitable for specific jobs. Others prefer to learn new skills and have new experiences, so they may hold a whole host of different jobs. Some have multiple jobs at the same time. Most bees are generalists; they cycle through different jobs at different stages of their lives and depending upon what the hive needs at any one time.
By nature, I’m curious and have an interest in a lot of different areas. None of us is just one thing. We contain multitudes. We can live our lives spherically, in many different directions, and be better for it.
Unified by a common purpose
While each bee has their talents and preferences, all of them work in service of their hive. They have one guiding mission — to perpetuate the health and longevity of their hive long after any one individual has passed away. For example, middle aged bees usually begin foraging. However, if the population of the hive needs to increase to maintain its health, a middle-aged bee will delay the foraging portion of their lives in favor of tending to the brood of baby bees (known as larvae.) Similarly, if the population of the hive is booming and more foragers are needed to collect nectar, pollen, and water to keep the hive healthy, she will begin to forage sooner than middle age.
This reminds of looking at our career choices through three lenses: what are we good at, what does the world need, and what do we enjoy doing? What is our higher purpose, and how do our lives and careers serve that purpose?
Managing career transitions
Though a worker honeybee only lives for a month or two, she often holds many jobs in that time and sometimes has more than one job at once. As soon as she emerges from her cell, a young bee gets to work around the hive, cleaning brood cells (including the one from which she just emerged) so that the queen bee can lay new eggs. Younger bees work inside the hive (like a child learning to do chores around the house) and older, more experienced bees work outside the hive, foraging for nectar, pollen, and water. Bees are never afraid to try something new, to be beginners. They are secure in their abilities, and they believe in one another’s abilities.
Whenever I’m trying something new, I think of bees and try to have the courage and confidence they have. Being part of a team means we’re never alone in our work. We’re all in it together.
Caring for the next generation
Taking care of their community is the north star for bees. Caring for future generations is the whole reason they do what they do. A nurse bee feeds and cares for thousands of developing bees, as well as the adult bees in the hive. Nurse bees also build new comb while caring for their bee family and build it with surprising speed. It’s a collaborative effort, with each bee playing their part in service to all the other bees and their collective future.
No one is an island. Taking care of each other in our community is also a way to take care of ourselves.
Minding their home
In addition to building comb, some bees are especially skilled at helping to maintain the temperature and humidity of the hive as weather conditions change. A hive is a dynamic place. When the temperature rises or plummets, or when drought sets in, environmentally inclined bees get to work using their bodies to heat and cool the hive so that their home and the bees who live there remain in tip top shape.
It’s easy for us to be heads-down on our work and consumed with our own lives. It’s worth taking a look around and seeing how we might be able to help the whole system in which we operate. We’ll be better off, and so will our neighbors, if the whole system works better for everyone.
Adventure awaits
As stated before, middle-aged bees begin the foraging chapter of their lives. They start by taking some test flights close to the hive to get their bearings. Within a matter of hours, they get the lay of the land and begin foraging for nectar, pollen, and water. What they collect, how much they collect, how many foraging trips they take per day, how far they travel, and if they attempt to multi-task by collecting more than one kind of material in a single trip depends upon the needs of the hive and the depth of the bee’s experience. Once she arrives back at her hive with the goods, she passes them off to receivers at the entrance of the hive before she either takes a rest or heads back out to forage again.
We spend a lot of time in our comfort zone. Getting out into the world gives us new perspective and benefits our community when we return with new knowledge and new experience.
Communication
The exchange of goods between foragers and receivers is thought to be a time for the bees to communicate. It’s possible that the receiver is letting the forager know what’s happening around the hive so that the forager is able to head out into the world to collect what the hive needs. The forager is letting the collector know what’s happening outside the hive.
If a forager is waiting a long time for a collector to take what she’s brought back, she will also begin to recruit more bees inside the hive to act as collectors, maximizing the efficiency of all of the foragers. She has agency to create a change. Foragers only travel from sunrise to sunset, and sleep through the night, so time is of the essence during daylight hours. Communication keeps the hive humming, literally and figuratively.
Our communities are healthier and happier when communication flows freely between members. Tell your stories and listen to the stories of others. We’re all better off when we share.
Rest
While we’ve given the proverbial title of worker bee to someone who’s always busy, bees prioritize rest for a very good reason — a tired bee doesn’t communicate nor navigate as well as a rested bee. The world is a treacherous place. To survive and thrive, and help her hive do the same, a bee must be well-rested and well-fed.
How many times do we tell ourselves, “Just push through,” when what we really need is to rest and recharge? Make like a bee and take a break. Nourish yourself. You’ll feel and work better when you take better care of yourself.
Looking to the future
No one home will suit a hive forever. While many bees spend their lives tending to the present needs of the hive, someone has to be on the lookout for what’s next. Scouts, who know the neighborhood well from their foraging, are consistently searching for the next home, and the next food and water sources. They will sometimes overnight in a new place to check it out as a potential future home for her hive. Once a home is chosen by the hive, a scout leads the entire swarm to that home, as she is one of the only bees in the hive to have ever been there.
While it’s important to be present, there’s also value to looking ahead every so often, too. Where might we want to go? What might be a future area of learning and experience for us? How might we refill the well?
So often the way we live and work is out of sync with how nature operates. How might our lives and careers be transformed if we took a page out of the bees’ book, establishing a flexible structure in our lives, careers, and communities that takes care of every member and allows every member to contribute?