I have two beehives. One is strong. the entrance to the hive buzzes with activity and I see the bees coming and going, their legs orange with the nectar they’re bringing back to the hive. The other hive sits almost silent. Few bees are entering or leaving the hive. A sign that the hive is weak.
The difference between these two hives can be summed up in one word. Queen. The busy hive has a strong queen; the weak hive doesn’t. If it has lost its queen, it will wither away. A queen-less hive cannot survive.
The beehive is a true matriarchy. There is only one queen at a time and she rules the hive. Only she lays the eggs, which the worker bees (exclusively female) attend and raise. And she sets the tone of the hive. If she is calm, the hive is calm. If she is aggressive, the hive is aggressive. The bees follow her lead.
Leadership always comes from the top, whether it’s beehives, business, or battleships. Without a strong effective leader, the entity suffers. Leadership doesn’t have to be authoritarian. I believe the the best leadership isn’t. But its still leadership whether its called multiplier leadership or service leadership or team leadership.
Is there any hope for a hive that loses its queen? Yes, and it’s Nature at its most creative. If the hive looses a queen for some reason, like it dies, is killed, or leads a swarm out of the hive, the worker bees, have the extraordinary ability to re-queen the hive themselves. They do this by choosing an egg, attend it by feeding it royal jelly, and allow it to develop to the point where, when it hatches, a virgin queen emerges. This isn’t the end of the process though. The potential queen has to be mated so she can lay eggs. And that process is rife with danger.
The newly hatched virgin queen then takes flight for her first and last time, since if she makes it back to her hive, she will never leave it and will spend the rest of her life laying eggs and ruling.
When she takes flight, the male bees, called drones, take the spotlight. Their only purpose in life is to mate with a virgin queen. After that they are superfluous as the female bees do all the work. All they do is eat and wait in case they have to service another potential queen.
If the new queen is healthy, the drones just hang around the hive and, before winter comes, the females get rid of them. Otherwise the drones would go through the honey reserves that feed the hive through the cold months.
But if the drones do their job, once the new queen is mated, she flies back to the hive where she was born and starts her rule. This is not a given as the odds are high that she doesn’t make it back. She is away for about a week and there are many reasons she doesn’t return, including bad weather that prevents mating, being eaten, or losing her life in some other way.
But when it works, it is stunning to see how, left to Nature, the bees can resolve a difficult situation. Right now, as I look at my little silent hive, I am putting my faith in the worker bees. I want to believe that they will raise a new queen who will mate successfully, come back to start laying eggs, and make the hive strong again. With the advice of friends more knowledgeable than I, I am doing what I can to help. I am both hopeful, curious, and concerned and should know in a few weeks.