Rick Gray
The Queen Bee
By
Jun 11, 2008 - 11:41:09 AM

For two months now, I’ve been a “beekeeper.”

I use quotation marks in all humility, having much to learn before I can truly claim the title, but I possess two hives, for whose welfare I am now responsible. 

The first is a new hive, a Christmas gift from my sister – the second an established hive from my friend Roger Polhemus, who has chosen to pursue new adventures.  Since acquiring my hives in April, I’ve been studying and working to see that my bees are happy in their new homes.

A few weeks back, in my new hive, I noticed the appearance of peanut-shaped brood cells – swarm cells and supersedure cells, depending on their location – warning signs that the colony was producing a new queen.

Something was wrong.  Either the old queen had died; or she was underperforming so seriously that the colony had decided to replace her; or my bees were so unhappy that they were preparing to swarm.  Whichever it turned out to be, the signs were not good.

I took preventive measures, such as improving air circulation within the hive.  I slashed open the peanut-shaped cells to prevent the hatching of a new queen – whose choice of mate would result in bees of unknown quality and temperament – and ordered a fertile queen from a reliable supplier.

I’ve now introduced her into my hive, hoping they’ll accept her.

More on that soon.

These dramatic events centered on the indispensable role of the queen in honeybee society.  Only a queen bee can lay eggs, which she does at a rate of several a minute – supplying thousands of future workers needed to gather supplies, produce honey, build comb, and defend the colony. 

Bees work tirelessly, driven by instincts encoded over millions of years of evolution.  They’re admirable little creatures, but little given to metaphorical thinking – so they might be surprised to learn that their succession crisis had started me thinking about my mother’s 89th birthday and the end of Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president.

But so it goes.

Human societies – families and nations – also have their “queen bees,” but the roles of these women are changing rapidly, and will continue changing over the coming century, all over the world.

Among bees, as among most living things, reproduction is the key to survival, and the female’s role in bearing and nurturing defines her life.

But humanity has conquered the essential evolutionary challenge of survival – to the point at which reproduction has become as much a problem as a blessing.  Indeed, today – as pressures grow to reduce human impact on the global processes that sustain us – our survival might depend, in part, upon reducing our own numbers.

Thus, human families will continue becoming smaller, even as individual life spans grow longer.   Given these trends, and the growing cultural emphasis on the role of the individual, and it’s hardly surprising that modern women demand a truly equal role in affairs once the province of males. 

Which brings me to Mom – and Senator Clinton.

This Saturday, Mom will be 89, and, for all her aches and pains, she remains a formidable lady. 

When I was a kid, I often thought that – but for the times in which she grew up – Mom should have gone to West Point.  Years later, she confessed to me that, as a girl, she’d had exactly that dream.

With her natural abilities – and her powerful sense of duty, honor, and loyalty – Mom would have made an ideal cadet and a superb soldier.

Given the role she played in my father’s career – arguing his legal cases or discussing political strategy at the dinner table – she’d have made an exceptional attorney or politician.  Maybe even a president.

So perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised me when Mom became more and more emotionally invested in Hillary Clinton’s campaign.  I know my mother pretty well, but I really can’t know how it feels to be a woman in America.

Mom was no great fan of Senator Clinton, but as pressure began building on her to drop out – from the Democratic power structure and a nearly monolithic media – something touched a nerve among women of all ages. 

Including Mom.

I believe the powers-that-be have awakened a “sleeping giant” in American political life.  Women of my generation – and my mother’s generation – have seen a woman come so close, only to be denied the prize when powerful forces united to oppose her. 

They will not forget.

Playing by the rules of the political game, Hillary will campaign for Obama with all the enthusiasm she can muster.   But I suspect many women will deny him their votes – clearing the path for their new champion to seek the White House again in 2012.

For unlike my honeybees, whose roles are defined by unbreakable instincts, human females can redefine their roles.  And they are.

I expect to live to see a woman in the Oval Office.  For all her 89 years, I rather hope Mom does, too.

Happy birthday, Mom!


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