Lessons from honeybees are astonishingly good. So delightful you won’t be able to resist biting off sweet chunks of wisdom from these little guys.
From their well-defined community structure and colony rules, to their vigourous working routine, the lessons from honeybees are tremendous.
Let’s take an in-depth look at the honeybee way of life. You may be surprised at how much you learn.
Reciprocal Relationships and Growing Together
One of the most well-known attributes of honeybees is the fact that they are important pollinators.
Their transfer of pollen allows plants to grow seeds and fruit, making honeybees essential for a functioning ecosystem.
This relationship between the honeybees and plant life is a mutually beneficial one. Honeybees collect the nectar and pollen they require for survival, while pollinating the blossoms that allow plants and food crops to grow.
Life lessons from honeybees #1
The cycle of development flourishes with partnership. Reciprocal interactions often lend to win-win situations.
As we pursue individual goals and satisfy our objectives, let’s ensure that others also grow and prosper. Especially those who have contributed in some way or another to our journey.
Lift up and support each other. There’s more than enough pieces of the success pie to go around the table.
Realising Your Purpose
Every bee in a colony has a role to play.
The Queen is constantly reproducing to strengthen the population and ensure the future generation of her colony.
The female ‘worker’ bees build the hive, ventilate it, and most importantly, they forage for food (they are the honeybees we see flying around in our gardens.)
The male ‘drone’ bees do not work. Their main job is to mate with the queen during the spring and summer months.
Life lessons from honeybees #2
We all serve a powerful purpose.
That’s worth repeating: we each have a unique and important purpose to fulfil in life.
Explore ideas and activities until you identify what that is, be intentional in your daily actions, and live out your purpose.
Mystery of the Inner Hive
Have you ever been curious about the mysterious objects that are bee hives?
What’s going on inside there?
Here’s a related quote from the highly acclaimed book “The Secret Lives Of Bees”:
“Most people don’t have any idea about all the complicated life going on inside a hive. Bees have a secret life we don’t know anything about”
The Secret Lives of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Life lessons from honeybees #3
Don’t judge people by surface attributes. Like bees, humans are complicated and multi-layered beings.
Do interact with sincere interest with each other. Sometimes we give the offhand “that sounds good” or ask “are you alright?” without actually paying attention to the responses. Who isn’t guilty of this, to varying degrees?
Genuinely listen to what a person is saying and be fully vested in the conversation.
Perhaps you will get a glimpse into what’s going on below their surface.
Don’t assume everyone is okay just because you never hear them complaining. Or, because they appear happy and upbeat on the outside.
Do check in regularly with each other.
Goal-Oriented Mindset
When bees forage for food, they typically fly short distances within their home vicinity i.e. close to the hive.
However, if needed, they can kick it up several notches and travel a considerable number of miles for food.
Life lessons from honeybees #4
When a higher purpose calls, will you abandon cruise control and step up your game to answer that call?
Will you go the extra mile?
We all have the innate capacity to break the mould and go in pursuit of greater heights in life.
Also Read: 6 Pieces of Advice to My Younger Self
Sticking Together When Conditions are Harsh
During the winter, honeybees continue to stay together as a colony, except for the male drones who are kicked out of the hive and die.
They cluster together in the hive, generating and transmitting body heat for survival. They rely on those precious reserves of honey, collected throughout the spring and summer seasons, to maintain their energy levels all winter long.
Life lessons from honeybees #5
When the going gets tough, don’t be afraid to lean on each other for support.
Don’t be afraid to speak up and ask for help. People are often willing to help if you ask for it.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated, we can overcome major hurdles when we rally together and act as each other’s support unit.
Just look at how much we’ve navigated through a tough crisis as a digital community via our online quizzes, virtual happy hours, e-learning forums, live exercise sessions on social channels, and more.
The Art of Non-Verbal Communication
Honeybees use the art of dance to communicate with each other.
You heard that right…cha cha cha.
Although it’s likely more along the lines of: “waggle, waggle, waggle” since their move has actually be coined as the “waggle dance”.
This “waggle dance” is actually a clever network signal that points the other worker bees towards the best food source.
Life lessons from honeybees #6
It is critical to recognize non-verbal cues in communication.
Sometimes what you observe from what goes unsaid yields significantly more value than spoken words.
Facing Adversity
Honeybees can sting you. But only when they perceive a threat!
Otherwise, these industrious creatures spend their lives never harming others, dedicated to the work of their colony.
Life lessons from honeybees #7
Mind your business and carry on dutifully in pursuit of your daily goals.
However, if a negative energy enters your space you should work to understand the cause and manage it constructively and swiftly.
Recognise the signals and take the steps to move forward with positivity in your orbit.
Protect your energy!
Tribal Life
Bees survive and thrive when operating as a collective organism.
From foraging and building food reserves in the spring and summer, to surviving the winter months as a unit, their success is rooted in team effort.
Life lessons from honeybees #8
We generally work much better towards common goals and produce more impressive results through group effort, as compared to individual effort.
Let’s give it up for cooperation!
Plus, no matter how skilled or resourceful we are as individuals, we do need others in order to meet essential needs. As the saying goes: “no man is an island.”
But don’t just survive. Find your tribe and thrive!
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What do you think of these unlikely sources of wisdom? Do honeybees inspire you in any of the ways a life coach may?
Great article. I never understood why people have problems with bees or wasps. If I see one buzzing around I let it get on with what it needs to do.
Thank you, Shane! I imagine that some folks react like that instinctively due to fear of being stung. Like other things in life, I guess we tend to have irrational or unfair reactions when we don’t fully understand the situation.
I would have never thought that I could have learned life lessons from bees, but boy was I wrong haha. Honestly, the points you made were spot on and sooo true. I was surprised on how you provided direct example from bees. Lovely post! 🙂
Glad to hear these points resonated with you!
I definitely credit the lockdown period for my becoming more hyper-aware and curious where nature is concerned.
Great post, I remember enjoying The Secret Life of Bees a lot when I first watched it. I have always loved honey bees because of the important role that they play in helping nature flourish. I noticed that most of your list touches upon the various ways that bees collaborate, in one way or another, and I think that that may just be the greatest lesson of all!
Thanks, Kat! Yes, the collaborative-based systems these little guys have in place for everything is remarkable.
As is the discipline required for this approach to work across such large tribes.
Will have to check out the movie for Secret Lives of Bees next. I do like reading the books first, and this one was SO good.
I am a straight talker irl, and I have a low tolerance for nonsense. This sentence resonates with me on so many levels: “However, if a negative energy enters your space you should respond to this threat and take care to remove it from your orbit.”
Thanks for sharing, Simone!
Thanks for reading, Ming!
I’m glad this point stuck out as it is a unique sound bite to the other lessons (which focused mostly around themes of work ethic and cooperation) but very important too.
Love that you connected great life lessons with honey bees. I never even thought of these! Thank you for sharing 🙂 That was a good read.
Thank you! Happy you enjoyed my take on it.
Isn’t it just amazing who/what/where we can source inspiration from?!!
This is such a wonderful post. I never realised that honeybees could be so insightful and fascinating.
Have you seen the documentary Honeyland? I think you would really enjoy it.
I’m really pleased to hear you say this gave you a different perspective on the role of honeybees.
I have not seen Honeyland, but it’s now officially on my list to view.
Thanks so much for reading, Shirsha, AND for this recommendation!
This is such a creative post Simone, I really enjoyed it! I’ve always loved insects (weird I know) and have always been fascinated by the social insects like ants a bees.
I especially like the part about, “Mind your business and carry on dutifully in pursuit of your daily goals.” I 💯 agree! Was it too tacky to say “mind your own beeswax” ? 😂😂
Thank you, Clarissa! It’s probably my most unique theme to date. So glad you appreciate the direction I took with it.
Wow – love of insects?! Gosh, that’s a stretch for me, am not that brave – mine is mostly curiosity.
“Mind your own beeswax”…LOL Definitely the more fun twist on words!
Yes, go bees! There is really a lot to learn from these busy creatures. It is humbling to realize how their traits can be so much better than us people on our bad days. But you are right, we can learn so much from them.
Love getting this level of enthusiasm back! Thanks so much for reading.
Yes, we can certainly gain from emulating many of their traits – that’d turn our bad days into great, productive ones.
This is a magnificent comparison and beautifully witty. And these are actually such vital lessons and good manners (in a way) that we can learn from. Definitely learnt something here whilst enjoying a lovely written piece!
Fanny, this is such high praise, THANK YOU! It was really a joy to write this one. I’m thrilled that the energy came across as you read, and that it made you reflect as well.
I loved this article! I had no idea we could learn so much from bees, or how many similarities we share. I also really liked the book “Secret Lives of Bees”. I shared to my fb page 🙂
Kristyn – thequeenofmycastle.com
Oh wow, thanks, Kristyn! Who knew learning about insect traits could be so exciting, lol.
Never knew I could learn so much from a bee, this is great and inspirational, truly.
Inspirational! That’s so great to hear. Thanks for reading, Nidia.
Wow, that was such an interesting post!! I would never think about bees the same way ahaha!! My fav point is that we each have a unique and important purpose. That is so true!!
That’s great to hear how much you liked it – thank you!
Although, yes, the next time you see a bee you will most certainly over-analyze it, lol.
Very interesting post, Simone! I have a bit of a thing for honey bees so I love that you pointed out all the life lessons we can learn from them! Thank you for sharing !!
Thanks so much, Lauren! They really are such interesting (and valuable) little creatures.