Day #398 Houses Gone, but Hives Here

A week or so ago, at Peerless Bookstore in Alpharetta, I bought Gone: a Heartbreaking Story of the Civil War / A Photographic Pleas for Preservation, featuring the photographs of Nell Dickerson who has, with her camera, chronicled the sorry state of many old buildings. On the jacket leaf, Dickerson says, “What the war didn’t take, time and apathy did. And yet those grand old homes—whether mansion or cabin—deserve our reverence and protection.”

As I paged through the book yesterday, I began to wonder about beehives. Are they ever simply abandoned? Well, yes. That’s the hallmark of colony collapse disorder – the abandoning of a hive. Like the Anasazi of the Southwest, the bees simply leave and nobody knows why.

But if we’re not dealing with a disorder, then bees keep their hives going, year after year after year. When they get too crowded, half the colony leaves with their queen. The remaining half hatch a new queen, and life in the hive goes on.

I keep saying we could learn something from bees. They don’t use wars to settle disputes; they model the precepts of personal responsibility; they contribute to the health of the world.

I’ll say it again – we could learn something from bees.

BEEattitude for Day # 396:

       Blessed are those who treasure their hives, for they shall find honey in multiple places.

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The teeny details:

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