Honey bees focus their lives completely on the survival of their community. They automatically take the required roles (i.e. drone, nurse or worker) in their community so that the necessary balance between bees undertaking these roles is maintained. Not surprisingly the role they take can be seen in their genetic make-up, but interestingly recent research (reported in the Guardian) has found that this genetic make-up can change. It seems that if all the nurse bees are removed then some of the worker bees take over these roles and within a week or so their genetic make-up has changed so that it reflects the nurse role.
It seems possible this happens not because they are wired that way and therefore, they undertake that role, but that if they undertake that role, they become wired to do so…. They become what they are being.
Whilst worker, or foraging, bees have wonderful and complex systems to communicate to each other where food sources can be found, and to navigate to and from their nest; their focus when out of the nest is on fulfilling their function which is finding nectar and pollen. It is the smell and colour of flowers that attracts them and that is why flowers have wonderful colours and smells as it attracts them – it is their joy. In following their joy, the function is fulfilled because the whole system comes together that way.
So, at the level of being a bee, the purpose of life is the survival and prosperity of their community.
Step back a level however and look at the purpose of honeybees from a human perspective. They provide something for us which we have no other way of producing – they make honey. Honey is not only pleasant for us and we love the taste of it … apparently it is also good for us in many ways; we use it for therapeutic reasons as well as pleasure.
Step back another level and look at the purpose of bees from a world perspective. Bees pollinate plants. When they visit a plant collecting pollen and nectar, they carry pollen around on their bodies and thereby spread the pollen around and this is what enables many plants to reproduce and survive.
There has been a lot of concern in recent years about the decline in the number of bees, with fear about the potential impact on plant life were they to disappear – because all animals rely on plants to provide the oxygen we need to make the planet habitable.
Bees therefore are important creatures in a big way – but as far as we are aware, they are not aware of this. They are focusing on the wellbeing of their local community.
We could take many things for this some of which may not be helpful as we are not bees, we have a lot more choices and awareness of what we are doing and thereby our place in the universe is different, however no less critical. However, I think there are messages here that may be helpful to us too.
- At some level we become what we are being … and we can change that if we choose
- We may think the role we have been given / or have chosen (worker or nurse) is critical at the time (and get very stressed about the importance of doing it) but it is the balance of the community that is important not the fact we are doing a particular role – the community will find balance as long as there are bees available.
- We often believe we can only fulfil our function or have value if we find the ‘right path’ but maybe we need to learn a lesson from the bees and follow our joy more often.
- Much of the impact we have on our universe is unseen by us when we focus on our day to day path and activities – the impact is much wider than we know.
Tales of the Universe 