2026 bee lesson 1
Our first-ever queen is gone.
After last summer’s excellent laying and building our colony to upwards of 40,000 bees, she has been missing for weeks and we definitively know that she is gone, though we don’t know why.
We’ve ordered another queen, but in the meantime, we just check on the colony periodically and wait.
A colony can survive for a short while with no queen - but only for a short while. The queen’s sole job in the 3-5 years she’s alive is to lay eggs. So, in this case, with the average lifespan of a worker bee only 5-7 weeks, if the queen is not there to lay more eggs as old bees die, the colony will dwindle away.
Interestingly, we’d already put our honey super box on top before we realized the queen was gone. And so the worker bees are currently very busy making honey for us.
In fact, if you looked through the hive’s observation window, you would think the hive is thriving with all the bees and honey; but in reality, it is slowly dying because it’s missing the one bee it needs most.
Sometimes my life can look like that - how about yours?
I’m busy doing all the right activities - leading, teaching, serving - but my spiritual life is dwindling away because I’m missing the One I need most: Jesus.
I may have put Him aside, choosing busyness over time with Him. Like the bees, my crowded life is full of activity, which everyone applauds. And so outwardly my life looks exemplary, when I know, however, that my busyness can actually leave me…empty.
The quiet, hidden-from-view essentials in my life need attention.
Peaceful time alone with God.
Honest, open prayer.
Thoughtful Scripture reading.
Silence.
Listening.
Reflective moments with God that keep me spiritually centered and whole.
And just as a queenless colony producing honey will never succeed, my own endless activity will not shape the deeply formed faith I long for.
How much attention are you giving the essentials of your faith? Notice if busyness and activities are crowding out the necessity of a deepening relationship with God.
The honey won’t last if the hive fails.
Today is a good day to tend the hive!
Natalie