20 Feb Queen Bee
Recently I was watching a documentary on bees. I was fascinated by their complex and highly sophisticated system of working together and was particularly intrigued by the careful engineering and design of the honeycomb. As I started to research bees a little more, one specific type of bee stood out….the queen bee.
The queen bee is the dominant female in the hive. All of the other bees protect her and she is constantly surrounded by worker bees who tend to her every need. Besides the attention, being queen bee has some additional privileges. Unlike the worker bees, the queen bee can sting repeatedly without dying. She can live for a few years, whereas other bees will typically only live for a few weeks or months. The queen bee can even choose the gender of her babies.
So how does one become a queen bee? Well, in typical bee fashion that is a rather interesting process. The current queen of the hive will lay eggs in wax queen cells and the nurse bees will feed the queen larvae something called Royal Jelly. If they were not fed this Royal Jelly they would be regular worker bees. It is this exclusive diet that makes the queen a queen. After a few days, the cell is capped and when the queen is ready to emerge she will chew through the cap. Now remember that there are several cells and thus, several queens in the making; however, the first to emerge from her cell will either kill the others or she will choose to take a swarm and start a new hive somewhere else. This process will continue until a new queen has emerged for the hive.
As distinctive women, we are all queens in our own right and thus, have a few things in common with the infamous queen bee. First, queens become queens by having an exclusive diet. Queen bees have an exclusive diet of Royal Jelly but we can and should have an exclusive diet of the Word of God. As women of distinction we cannot be the queens that we were meant to be without a steady diet of the Word to nourish our hearts, our minds and our souls. Second, the queen bee has to fight to claim the throne. As queens we also have to fight obstacles that may keep us from our rightful place. Our obstacles may be day to day struggles with bad habits, temptations or maybe even our own insecurities but we have to choose to fight so that we can emerge as a true queen. Finally, being a queen has its privileges. Queen bees get all the attention and live longer than all the rest. As royalty, we too have distinct privileges. We have a Father who fights all of our battles and we have the full attention and guidance of the Holy Spirit. And yes, we have the best privilege of all which is the gift of eternal life. Long Live the Queen!
*Picture from www.pixabay.com (Public domain image (Creative Commons CC0))
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