The Secret Life of Bees

If I had come across this swarm spread across my back door, I would have panicked. But here, sitting next to Seeley, I felt a strange calm. The insects thrummed with their own business. They flew past our faces. They got caught in our hair, pulled themselves free and kept flying. They didn’t even mind when Seeley gently swept away the top layer of bees to inspect the ones underneath. He softly recited a poem by William Butler Yeats

When you consider a swarm one bee at a time this way, it starts to look like a heap of chaos. Each insect wanders around, using its tiny brain to perceive nothing more than its immediate surroundings. Yet, somehow, thousands of honeybees can pool their knowledge and make a collective decision about where they will make a new home, even if that home may be miles away.

“Bees are to hives as neurons are to brains,” says Jeffrey Schall,
This essay had my mind all over the place. I think this is because I was reading with a goal and that was to find the deeper meaning. There were many instances of me just sitting there like, "can this be the goal...nah, oh maybe this." I feel like this essay still taught me about bees even though the main idea is not really surrounding bees, instead about how the bees work. The part where the author compared a bee hive to a brain really helped everything click. The deeper meaning of this is about working well as a team and making better collective and informed decisions. If everyone was focused on one goal and not themselves the system of democracy would run so much smoother. Carl Zimmer is pointing out the flaws of our system od democracy as well as the flaws of human beings. I completely agree with Zimmer and truly believe that yes, we can learn from bees. Even though they are tiny and look hectic and all we think they are good for is honey, they are examples for us to follow. They have built a society that works on certain principles and it feels like at least nine times out of ten the bee’s society is a success. It is a no brainer, we should at least test this theory and see where it takes us.