Since I was a youth, I have heard philosophers, “tree-huggers”, and the like, extol the virtues of a bee colony, as a model for human society. Here. for your review, is the basic social organization of the typical bee colony:

Queens

Queens are the only members of a colony able to lay fertilized eggs. An egg-laying queen is important in establishing a strong honey bee colony, and is capable of producing up to 2,000 eggs within a single day. Queens mate early in life and store up millions of sperm within their bodies. While they are capable of living up to five years, they only often only live two to three years producing eggs.

Workers

Worker honey bees are the largest population within a colony. Worker bees are entirely female, but they are unable to produce fertilized eggs. If there is no queen they do sometimes lay unfertilized eggs, which become male drones. Worker bees use their barbed stingers to defend the colony, but after attacking, the barbs attach to the victim’s skin, tearing the stinging bee’s abdomen, resulting in death.

Workers are essential members of honey bee colonies. They forage for pollen and nectar, tend to queens and drones, feed larvae, ventilate the hive, defend the nest and perform other tasks to preserve the survival of the colony. The average life span of worker bees is approximately six weeks.

Drones

Drones, or male honey bees, have only one task: to fertilize new queens. Drones mate outdoors usually in midair and die soon after mating. Some honey bee colonies will eject surviving drones during fall when food for the colony becomes limited.

Swarms

Honey bee swarming is a natural part of a developing their colony. Honey bees swarm as a result of overcrowding within a hive. To create a swarm, an old honey bee queen leaves the hive with about half of the hive’s worker bees, while a new queen remains in the old hive with the rest of the workers. In the wild, honey bees swarm most in late spring and early summer, at humid times of the day. While swarming is part of the healthy life cycle of every honey bee colony, beekeepers often attempt to reduce the incidence of swarming in domesticated bees.

A honey bee swarm may contain hundreds or thousands of worker bees and a single queen. Swarming honey bees fly temporarily, and then cluster on shrubs and tree branches. The clusters rest there for several hours to a few days, depending on weather conditions and the amount of time needed to search for a new nesting site. When a scout honey bee locates a good location for the new colony, the cluster immediately flies to the new site. https://www.orkin.com/pests/stinging-pests/bees/honey-bees/honey-bee-colony

NOTE: I have seen Google’s AI alters the name “drones” to “unmanned aerial vehicle”:

Unmanned aerial vehicleAn unmanned aerial vehicle, commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. Wikipedia

The bee colony/human society thing is an allegory.

noun

noun: allegory; plural noun: allegories

1. a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.”Pilgrim’s Progress is an allegory of the spiritual journey”

Our US society has, unfortunately, lost, or never gained, the understanding or usage of literary/philosophical tools, like allegory and metaphor. So, I see the need to review such structures when I write about them – otherwise, Amerikuns will fight and stab each others’ eyes out!

An allegory is not a metaphor – I not saying “bee colonies are similar to human colonies.” An allegory is much more a passive, i.e. left to the reader, tool: I describe the bee colony, and you, the reader, make inferences or comparisons, in your own minds and hearts. I do reserve the right to make metaphors, however, like…

Queens are clearly the rai·son d’ê·tre of the colony – not at all the “leader”; rather, the source of purpose for all the other members. If our society has a “queen”, it could be argued that the President of the United States fills this role. The President, currently, is in no way a “leader”. The President doesn’t really do anything, except serve as an icon for debate. Like the Queen, the President has only a short term – 5 years for the Queen/ 4 years for the President. The Queen is a gluttonous “feeder”. The dangerous aspect of the Queen is that she produces the eggs – the germinal members of the future society.

Workers are only female. They protect the hive, and do all the work. This could remind us of other females in nature – fiercely protective of the “nest”. At some point in US society, women/mothers worked at home – worked themselves to death, were responsible for guarding the children, “ventilating the hive”, etc.

Can’t help the comparison of drones to US males – again, not a generalization here: this cannot be applied to all American men, or American Males. But for the bees, their only purpose is to fertilize eggs. Very tempted to make that into a generalization, but leaving it up to you. Note that they do not fertilize the (female) workers – they only fertilize the Queen, which tempts me again to make the comparison that American males only serve to fertilize the Führer – serve the fertilize the ideals, but not the progenitors of the race. The other sad thing is that “Some honey bee colonies will eject surviving drones during fall when food for the colony becomes limited.” This reminds me more of our corporations nowadays – the employees (not necessarily only women, clearly): when the profit margin gets squeezed, you just eject them. What the little article I am citing does not mention is that it is the female workers who do the “ejection” – by stinging the drones when the try to enter the hive.

The last bit – that of the swam – is painfully reminiscent of most human societies I see in this era – whenever a culture “feels” cramped, they swarm out. The major difference is, in bee swarming, they seek out uninhabited locations, which they gain without conflict. Since the human population is essentially over-populous, there is nowhere to go without extant populations, or, because of the avarice which seems inherent in humans (although it is, IMO, learned from the Queen), human swarms focus on inhabited locations – urban sprawl, gentrification – these all are swarms.

For your consideration: are we comparable, allegorically, to bee society? Do we want to be?