Article July 21, 2008 Issue

LEARNING FROM THE BEES

JOHN DANIELS

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

IF WE WERE ABLE to ask bees why they do what they do, the answer might be deceptively simple. They buzz from blossom to blossom and eat the nice food within. Satisfied, they fly home, and if they're honeybees, they take nectar with them for storage in the hive.

Most likely they are unaware of what happens to the pollen dispersed as they enter each flower, and of the millions of people who depend on them for much of the food they eat. The bees simply do their thing and buzz on. But whether they are aware of it or not, they belong to a worldwide natural system in which many elements and conditions, having little or no knowledge of one another's identity or motivation, must cooperate in order to fulfill a good purpose.

Systems like the bees' can be called natural because they are beyond the capacity of human beings to create or replicate and are governed by a shared intelligence we can't physically detect. We play a role in the system as we collect its products, but to us they exist primarily as a resource of good over which we have been given stewardship.

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