I believe in the power of women.
I work for around half a million of them every day, and they work for me. I am their caretaker, and they are my workers. A few thousand of them are the best engineers you have ever met. Another couple thousand are the best nurses you have ever heard of. Four of them are the best mothers ever to live, and the remaining thousands are the best gatherers and guards that the world has ever seen. They are unselfish and put their thousands of sisters before themselves. If there is a threat to their house, they will die in battle to deter the threat away. Of the thousand sisters, they have only a few hundred brothers. The brothers do not guard, clean or help any of their siblings’. All they do is consume the hard work of their extraordinary sisters. From the second these amazing ladies are born, they begin their work. This is the intriguing story of a honeybee.
When I first became a beekeeper, after four months of bee school, I realized the true power of an insect that can save the world. On mothers’ day last year, I installed my first package of bees. This was my first experience having hundreds of bees less than an inch from my skin. I became comfortable with these little insects as they crawled under my suit and started crawling on my stomach. I was unaware that honeybees are experts at finding and climbing into little holes wherever they can. As it turns out, they had found the bottom of my pant leg on my bee suit, and started crawling in. Honeybees are not meant to sting you. They are meant to pollinate and create honey. Anyway, these bees had started crawling up my leg and onto my stomach. After a couple of nervous moments, I calmly walked away from the cloud of bees and unzipped my suit. When I lifted my shirt, I found 10 baby bees clinging to my chest. I gently wiped them away, trying not to hurt them. I returned to my hives unharmed.
This was a good beginning to my hives. Now when I walk through the woods, and come the area where my bees are nestled into a little pocket of trees, I know that when I lift the top of a hive, I will be looking down at a family of the hardest workers I have ever encountered. These women are pretty powerful. We need them to survive. Plants need them to survive, and the planet needs them to survive. They might be the most powerful women in the world. Queen Elizabeth and Oprah are some very significant women, but nothing compares to the little insects who pollinate the planet. This is why I believe in the power of women.
This I believe.