Speaking of reproduction:

Today, I think we should talk about the gender politics of bees. It’s particularly relevant just now, and here’s why:

I call it: Dead Bees on a Porch, and it’s where our story of bee love, lust and betrayal ends.

(That was, by the way, the only bee picture I have on hand so you’re getting Miscellaneous House Interior from here on out)

There are three types of bees: the queen (big, female, runs the show and lays the eggs, only one per hive), the workers (your go-to bees for foraging, baby-raising, honey-making and much more. They’re the ones you see on your begonias, they’re female, they far outnumber others in the hive) and the drones, our gentlemen lovers.

A queen is born just like any other bee in the hive. But from the very beginning of her life, she is fed royal jelly by her nurses and this causes a pretty unbelievable set of changes. She grows much bigger than the other bees, she develops ovaries, and her lifespan is increased from months to years. All this with a caveat though: she’s a virgin. She’s ignored by the other bees, and any other virgin queens in the hive will hunt her down and try to kill her.

Drones next: Our manly bees are raised by workers as well. They grow up bigger than the workers and have very large and handsome wrap-around-their-whole-head eyes. Those eyes are not for oogling worker bees, mind you: drones have eyes for queens alone.

Drones do not work. They wake up in the morning and eat honey for breakfast. When it’s warm enough outside for easy flight, they leave the hive and fly to drone congregation areas (i.e. man bee dive bars)– legendary locations where they meet up with drones from other hives and — wait for it — sit around and use those huge eyes to watch for queens. All day. And then when it starts getting dark or inclement, they fly home, eat more honey and go to bed.

Queens leave the hive once in their lifetimes. It’s called a nuptial flight: a virgin queen leaves the hive and flies hundreds of feet into the air where she is spotted by drones who fly to her by the dozen. She mates with them in flight one after another. It’s apparently quite a sight, and called a queen comet: a hundred or so bees flying through the air together. The mated drones do not survive — their bodies are torn apart and they fall down to the ground to die. Having mated with a dozen or even dozens of drones, the queen returns and is recognized by other bees as a real queen for the first time.

Finally: winter. Winter is not for lovers. There’s no food outside and it’s too cold to fly. Drones become honey-eaters without purpose, a fact that is not overlooked by their chaste, careworn sisters. And so, when the weather turns cold in the fall, the workers drag hundreds of drones down the combs to the mouth of the hive and throw them out into the cold to die.

We can watch this through our bedroom window– soon our hive will be an exclusive sorority if it’s not already. They’ll huddle together through the cold months, relying on their numbers for warmth and their stores of honey for survival. Come spring, if they’ve survived, they’ll get on with the business of starting over, including raising new drones for the new season.

My hive will have no use for drones next year because my queen is young and strong and will never leave the hive again. But my hive will raise drones in the spring just the same, and maybe they’ll get lucky and fly to queens from who have come to them from other hives in other areas. In everything I’ve learned about bees, this is the thing they do that shows their instinct looks beyond the survival of their very own hive.  It’s a bigger and more essential something than any bee or colony that makes it possible. And so somewhere in the lustful, brutal courtship of bees is a love of more than just selves. Exactly as, we declare, all the great love stories tend to go.

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