and filled with purpose is directly
connected to a seemingly insignificant
act when I was a boy
an elderly beekeeper Roy Hightower
brokered a deal where he would place his
beehives on my family’s forested land
and in exchange he would teach us about
beekeeping well Roy he got a good deal
because he got a great honey Megan spot
free labor and but from the moment that
I first pulled that frame of honeycomb
out of the Beehive and held it up
against the Sun I was hooked on the
honey the Sun shone through like stained
glass and you could poke your finger in
there and taste the different types of
honey made from the different flowers it
wouldn’t be until later in life that I
realized the real treasure that was
contained in that comb and boy he
sparked something in me that became the
passing of a baton because unbeknownst
to either one of us Roy was nearing his
last lap and I was just beginning my
turn in a life filled with with honey
and bees another mentor showed up in
college
Archie Stapleton I lived in one of his
cabins and traded out rent for work in
his vineyard and with his beehives and
he taught me to not just love the honey
but to love the bees by telling me how
these amazing facts in like how all
60,000 worker bees are female and the
Queen she’s like Cinderella she’s born a
worker she’s fed this stuff a royal
jelly that transforms her into a queen
we had great conversations while we were
making wine and Mead and life was good
and it was so good that when I graduated
with this degree in philosophy and
religion I figured I needed to give back
and what I would do was save the world
I’m serious
so the US Peace Corps accepted my
application and asked me to teach
beekeeping on the island of Jamaica so I
spent the next two years working with
over 100 beekeepers and teaching
beekeeping in five schools and then one
day while working with a beekeeper high
up in this giant mango tree I had this
realization and it dawned on me how
naive I had been to think that I could
make some sweeping changes and save the
world in fact the only thing I could
even put my finger on that I’d done was
just try really hard to help each person
I served just one at a time I even felt
guilty because I felt like I was the one
that was benefiting the most from from
all of these efforts and it was nothing
grand and I wasn’t saving the world but
I thought I’ve touched hundreds of
people with bee since Roy put me on this
path and I thought about how proud he’d
be if he if he would only be new and
eventually honey bees would rescue me
from this early 30s no career angst and
give me a life with filled with purpose
when I started a company selling my own
honey with the stated mission of
educating people about the wonder of the
honey bees so let me take you back to
that boyhood bee yard in that
stained-glass frame of honeycomb each
color and each unique taste in those
sections is because of a honey bees
flower fidelity honey bees are loyal to
the best source of nectar and they
actually do something called like the
waggle dance no joke that communicates
to the rest of the hive where to find
so if I’m holding that frame up
each one of those colored sections
represents the relationship that bees
have with a species in the flowering
plant world so I can poke my finger in
the reddish honey taste it and it’s kind
of smoky sweet and that represents the
Sawtooth palmetto is just growing all
around me the golden section it tastes a
little bit like marshmallows and that is
the vital partnership the bees have with
the holly bushes which are thriving and
these bushes have been helping the bees
thrive and the bees help them thrive and
it’s been a great great partnership so
when I open it bee hive I don’t just see
bees I can see a distant past it’s like
falling into Alice’s rabbit hole bees
are 50 to 150 million years old and I
can envision a time when the plant world
is harvesting the sun’s energy storing
it in simple sugars its first developing
the flowers that offer some of this
nectar to the B and then the flowering
plants start competing and they develop
more elaborate colors and patterns or
flowers in an attempt to woo the bees
over because the winning species is
going to get this cross-pollination
because of that flower fidelity and
that’s going to allow it to out-compete
all of its neighbors and so over the
eons the plant world has been shaped and
evolved into the one that we have today
and those flowers that you look out and
see those gorgeous flowers are not for
our eyes they’re for the bees and the
impact continues because surrounding
those pollinated seeds are fruits that
go to feed countless birds and animals
and we depend on 400 agricultural crops
that the bees are are working with so
the true treasure in that comb is not
just in the honey
it’s in the process of its creation and
the impact that has on the world around
us
bees have to visit 2 million flowers to
make one pound of honey and on average
average behave is going to visit 500
million flowers in the course of a year
and if you take all the beehives in the
world they pulling a lot of flowers like
there should be a flight there it’s a
lot of zeros it’s amazing and and so
honeybees they have literally changed
the world and for the better and they’ve
think they’re like one of the most
ancient perhaps the most noble of all
species this little tiny honeybee like
nature’s Master Gardeners well so in
looking to this distant past I think it
can also show us a way forward the
Jamaican I’m in Jamaica they have a
saying you come like a wasp and they use
that when referring to somebody that did
acts like they know more than they
actually do anybody now a lot of those
people are happy
to the background of that story is the
wasps went to the honeybee and said hey
can you teach me how to make honey and
she’s like sure that’s important and
begins to teach him how to make the comb
at which point the wasps starts to walk
away and the honey bee she calls after
hey
I’ve even taught you the most important
part 9 he’s like yeah I’m on I’m on I
got it I got it I know and still today
can only make the nest and right or
wrong most wasp kill and eat things for
a living
and um individually we could probably
act like a wasp and survive and you see
that around sometimes but I don’t think
it’s sustainable as a species there’s a
lot of us here on this planet 7 and 1/2
billion so we need to listen to the
honeybees because they’re showing this
bridge to a more noble and a more
virtuous path in life and I know this
sounds all too simple in Pollyanna by
the ha but let me illustrate with a true
story so with all these maladies going
on in the bee world which you’ve heard
about the we decided we would take the
long view and try and raise a generation
that understand love and protect the
honeybees so toward that we created the
bee calls project this nonprofit and
what it would do is put this glass
educational beehive inside a schools
media center and the kids would get to
see the bees you know building honey
raising young and every once while
exposed to some bad pesticides for
mosquito spray or pest to come in so and
they really learned a lot and soon we
had about 25 schools buzzing with bees
and at that point one of the
administration’s risk managers called on
she thought we were crazy and we kind of
thought we were too but out but it was
working but so she’s only had five
schools in her jurisdiction but she
began calling other towns and districts
and getting them to prohibit the
beehives then soon we were issued a
cease and desist letter
we not only had to stop putting beehives
in the schools but we had to remove them
and then they had this public board
meeting we showed up to defend our case
and then these students started arriving
and their parents and the teachers and
the principals and even local business
people that had been touched by these
bees and the when the board members
comes over is like this is crazy this is
not going to work you need to tell these
people to go home but everybody stayed
the beat the bees were like on trial I
know the outcome would have been awful
and so everybody got up there with her
homemade save the bees t-shirts and
their signs then pled little two-minute
case and then it climax with this this
group of first graders that go up there
and huh and then the smallest little
girl goes behind the podium and her
voice rings out into the room over the
microphone and her heart felt like plea
for the bees kind of broke into all of
our hearts and she ends it by saying I
am seven years old and I am Not Afraid
and you shouldn’t be afraid either save
our bees and that cynical board member
jumps up and he’s like declares we can
and he points to the risk manager and
demands that she work with us to find
common ground solutions and so today
three years later we’re finishing the
installation of our 275th school in 46
states and four countries and it’s all a
whoo a Whoville moment right all right
so let me leave you with this because
and what if we as a species could
emulate the Honorable honeybee and it
starts with our next interaction with
the environment with the business with
the person next to the next person that
you meet the bees are showing us a
sustainable way to have humanity live
and continue and prosper and it’s
admirable and it’s achievable
let us not destroy you in 100 years what
the honeybees have spent 100 million
years making and maybe perhaps in our
multitude of reciprocal acts we cannot
just save the world and the bees but in the process we can also save ourselves