Learning lessons from bees

By Kwon Bong woon

Bees are one of the most important types of pollinators in agriculture and the natural ecosystem, responsible for pollinating about one-third of all the food that we eat. As well as valuing bees for their honey, people have come to recognize the importance of bees in promoting food security and variety in plants and animals.

Bees typically symbolize dedication, cooperation, diligence, teamwork and sincerity due to their natural behaviors and contributions. Bees are fascinating insects. We can learn many leadership lessons from them.

Too often we take nature for granted and fail to study it and learn from it. I am not an expert on the little insects. However, I have shared a few interesting facts with many people and converted them to help convey key leadership skills necessary in our busy daily lives.

Bees serve as examples to people because they are very sincere and work in an ordered way. We can learn to be obedient, hardworking and sincere from their example. Bees are important pollinators, over 90 percent of wild flowering plants need animal pollinators like bees.

Bees are part of the biodiversity on which we all depend for our survival. They cooperate in everything they do. They also behave as if individuals matter, while at the same time keeping the common good of the hive as their key priority. If one bee is suffering or falling behind, the others step up and work in an orderly manner, making sure that collective productivity is never reduced.

But sadly, bees and other pollinators such as butterflies are increasingly under threat due to human carelessness. The bee population has been declining globally over recent decades due to habitat loss because of climate change and frequent forest fires. If bees go extinct, food production will be severely disrupted. This poses a threat to a variety of plants critical to human well-being and livelihoods.

Bees not only pollinate the flowers that we admire but also crops, which we rely on for the production of food. During the flowering period, it is helpful to refrain from spraying pesticides as much as possible and spray insecticide after flowering. Bees are at risk of extinction largely due to human indifference caused by large-scale changes in land use, industrialized agricultural practices and the detrimental use of pesticides, which have all contributed to destroying their habitat and reducing their available food sources.

Global warming also plays a large role in the endangerment of the bee population. Rising temperatures, increased flooding, droughts and changes in blooming seasons of flowering plants all affect the bees' ecosystem, reducing their suitability to the environment and threatening their survival. Without these insects that help bear fruit, humans are likely to worry about their food sources.

The writer worked at a bank in Seoul. (kbw8234664@naver.com)