I have been beekeeping since I was a child.  My first encounter with bees was when I was 9 years old.  Throughout my life I have had a love affair with bees both professionally and personally.  Bees are amazing and the more I learn about bees the more I am in awe of bees and nature and this beautiful planet.

Stoic bees

I admire bees.  Bees are stoic – they just get on with it.  No matter what I do to their beehive when I open it the bees just get on with it.  They don’t throw up their collective wings and together say this is hopeless, look at what the stupid beekeeper has done with our hive! They knuckle down and deal with whatever difficult circumstances they are in now and just get on with it.  I can remove or kill their queen and they will make another.  If I break their honeycombs they will build more.  I can split the colony in two and they will turn themselves into two colonies.  They just get on with dealing with what is at hand now and what needs to be done.  In our human world stoicism is the ability to “endure pain or hardship without showing feelings or complaining”.  Bees are stoics and we can learn from them.

Bees don’t waste time

Second lesson:  bees don’t waste a day.  They are busy.  Busy as a bee.  Every opportunity they get they are hard at work.  They know winter is coming and there will be many months when they cannot fly due to the cold and the wind and rain.  So when a sunny day comes or even a marginal day which is still possible to work you will find them working hard.  They work all the day long.  They seem to know time is of the essence and they must work today or regret later.  Their very survival depends on it.  I need to learn from my bees and make the most of today.  Today is all that matters and I need to live it to the full, just like my bees.

These are two life changing lessons from bees.  There is so much we can learn from nature if we open our minds to what lessons nature is teaching us.  Last year I launched a bee course on Udemy.  There are more things I have learned from bees and I go into depth on my course (now taken by more than 100 students from around the world).

Best wishes,

Tom

P.S. Check out my beekeeping course ‘Background to Beekeeping’ on Udemy for more detail on the wonderful world of bees and beekeeping.