The life of a worker honeybee is to visit thousands of flowers per day. Her tiny wings beat 11,400 times per minute as she flies up to 6 miles from her hive at a speed of 15 miles per hour. The busy bee might make 12 trips in a day, visiting 50–100 flowers from a single type of flower on each trip. Working with 555 other worker bees, together they may gather 1 pound of honey from about 2 million blossoms. But each little bee will make only 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in her entire lifetime of 6 weeks long—so, to be successful, they really need one another!

There is a nice poem about a lesson we can learn from these amazing creatures. It’s written by the famous hymn writer, Isaac Watts:

How Doth the Little Busy Bee

How doth the little busy bee

Improve each shining hour,

And gather honey all the day

From every opening flower!

How skillfully she builds her cell!

How neat she spreads the wax!

And labors hard to store it well

With the sweet food she makes.

In works of labor or of skill,

I would be busy too;

For Satan finds some mischief still

For idle hands to do.

In books, or work, or healthful play,

Let my first years be passed,

That I may give for every day

Some good account at last.

The bees work very hard to make their delightful product—honey. But did you know there is something we can learn to enjoy even more than this sweet treat?

“The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.” “How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalms 19:9, 10; 119:103).

So the next time you open God’s word, pray to think of this!