By Marianne Lyons Delorey, Ph.D.
“Anyone who thinks they’re too small to make a difference has never met the honeybee.”
– author unknown.
A couple of years ago, I decided I wanted to try keeping bees. I watched videos, I took online classes, I went to demonstrations, and then, I decided I was ready.
Spoiler alert – I was not ready.
But I did it anyway. I was stretching my brain in ways I had not stretched it in a long time. There was so much to learn, and it was more unfamiliar than I expected. But even as I learned about bees, they taught me about life and aging. Here are my 10 lessons from keeping bees that are easily applied to aging.
- Stay clean. As soon as a new bee emerge from their cell, their first job is to clean the cell they were in. They do this so that the queen can lay a new egg in that cell. Later in life, those bees who can keep themselves and their hives clean are less likely to have health issues related to a mite overload.
- Learn your job but keep doing the thing that makes you feel young. During the life cycle of a bee, their job for the hive keeps changing. Young bees stay at home and become nurse bees for the colony. Older bees collect nectar and pollen. While everyone has a role to play, scientists have determined that older bees that are required to become nurse bees again have a revitalization of sorts and start acting like younger bees.
- Take care of your community. The life of every bee depends on the health of the colony as a whole. Take care of the people around you so they can take care of you in turn.
- Whatever life gives you, turn it into something sweet. Bees gather pollen and nectar from flowers. If you have ever eaten a flower, you probably know they don’t taste sweet. However, bees turn this food into honey. Be your best self and turn the gifts you are given into something sweet.
- Use your defenses carefully. The worker bees only can sting one time. Once they sting, they die. We all have defenses, but as we age, we need to learn to use them sparingly.
- Kick people out of your life if needed. Heading into winter, bees kick out the unproductive members of their hives to make sure there are enough resources for the colony for the winter. Similarly, as we age, we should get rid of people who do not bring us joy or comfort.
- Huddle together – in the coldest days of winter, bees huddle together for warmth. Keep your family and friends close and you will survive the hardest parts of life.
- Enjoy the flowers – really, this needs no embellishment.
- Even pain can have a purpose. It turns out that bee venom has the potential to help reduce inflammation in people with arthritis. It turns out that a little pain can bring a great amount of relief to those without allergies.
- We like to think that we have contributed to this world in some meaningful way. Each honeybee only creates about 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime. It helps to remember (as American author and clergyman Edward Everett Hale said): “I am only one but still I am one. I cannot do everything but still I could do something because I cannot do everything. I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”
As with all of nature, if you listen, you can learn. And bees have a lot to teach us if we can listen carefully.
Marianne Lyons Delorey, Ph.D. is the executive director of Colony Retirement Homes. She can be reached at 508-755-0444 or [email protected] and www.colonyretirementhomes.com.
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