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There’s been a lot of valuable research explaining how the honeybee colony functions as a superorganism – the idea is both obvious and mind-blowing! The bees can’t survive without one another and they work towards a common goal, but it’s even more insane than that.

Bees are inspiring creatures. They create their own food through foraging without damaging the plant they feed from. They do not waste anything – putting the wax, propolis, pollen, water, honey to work in an impressively efficient way.

One of the big ideas behind the “superorganism” is that natural selection prefers the formation of larger units of life. By working together with a hive mind mentality, these bees can accomplish more, protect each other, and work towards a common goal in incremental steps that add up to one, super functioning hive.

One lesson you learn quickly in beekeeping is that bees die. These thoughts of the superorganism comfort me; knowing that what really matters is the health of the entire hive rather than each individual bee.

Maybe humanity has a little something to learn from these bees – from making decisions for the “greater good” to working together to accomplish a larger goal, these little creatures seem to be a step ahead of most of the animal kingdom.