Busy Little Bees

     The other day I was attempting to catch up on a pile of ironing.  Ironing is not my favorite chore to do...in fact it is one of my least favorite things.  However, I find if I listen to something it makes the time go by faster.  Usually I listen to one of my many Pandora stations, but this particular time I decided to listen to this past conference session.  There was one talk in particular that stuck out to me.  I think it was from the Saturday afternoon session, it's called "Be Anxiously Engaged."  The part that stuck out to me was about honey bees. 

     Honeybees are driven to pollinate, gather nectar, and condense the nectar into honey. It is their magnificent obsession imprinted into their genetic makeup by our Creator. It is estimated that to produce just one pound (0.45 kg) of honey, the average hive of 20,000 to 60,000 bees must collectively visit millions of flowers and travel the equivalent of two times around the world. Over its short lifetime of just a few weeks to four months, a single honeybee’s contribution of honey to its hive is a mere one-twelfth of one teaspoon.

     Though seemingly insignificant when compared to the total, each bee’s one-twelfth of a teaspoon of honey is vital to the life of the hive. The bees depend on each other. Work that would be overwhelming for a few bees to do becomes lighter because all of the bees faithfully do their part.

 

     I was amazed when I heard this.  When I've thought of honey I always had an image of globs and globs of golden honey inside a beehive, like in Winnie the Pooh, but I had never considered the seemingly small contribution of the single honey bee.  The more I thought on this the more I realized that we as Mormon Mommy Writers, and even more so as writers dedicated to writing GOOD WHOLESOME literature we are like the little honey bees.  On a singular level our contribution to the massive pool of literature may seem so small, maybe even unnoticeable at first, but as a whole, as a group working together towards a common goal we can have a huge impact.  I firmly believe that we can make a difference in peoples' lives with our talents, especially when we work together.  I know some days I wonder if it's really worth the effort that we have put into our WIP, and we haven't even started down the publishing road.  It can be a bit discouraging, but I have come to the understanding that IT IS WORTH IT.  Don't get discouraged.  Even the smallest amounts help add to the "honey pot."