Beeeeee like the Bee

Good Morning, last year I signed my husband and I up to a 6-month beekeeping course. It was the best thing we did that year. It was a lovely way for us to learn something new together, to join a new community, to breakaway from the rigmarole of life. But we learned lessons from the bees that I had not envisaged. Here are just 3:
1. Good leaders leave Egos behind. From the Queen Bee we learned about excellent leadership, to be focused on the needs of your team, providing them with what they need to do the best in their roles, but not micromanaging or interfering; trusting them to thrive.
2. Communication is key. Bees do a waggle dance to communicate to their hive where nectar can be found. A bee in need of grooming has a different sort of dance to express their need, and a fellow bee won’t hesitate to groom and relieve them. If the Queen is lost, the bees will seek her out and when they do, they’ll lean towards her turning the bodies into arrows indicating the way. Compassionate community can only truly be built on attentiveness, communication and hard work.
3. Sustainable Efficiency. Bees are efficient, but not in the soulless corporate sense of efficient but in the wholesome sense of being focused and driven, seeing their work through to conclusion in a way that doesn’t harm their environments but strengthens the ecosystem. After all, the existence of all life would likely soon disappear if all bees did!

The Qur’an has a whole chapter named the Bee and tells us to look to the Bee for lessons, this hardly surprises me.

I pray for the humility to learn from all of God’s creatures, Ameen