Do you like sweet things? God has given us something sweet that is gathered by very diligent workers and packaged just right so that we could use it. It is sweet, it is good for you (as long as you don’t eat too much), and it can help with healing certain things, too. Honey!

Where do we get honey? From those little workers called honey bees. Bees are fascinating to watch and study. They can teach us so many lessons. Created on the 5th day of the creation week, God designed them very uniquely. They are quite small and do not live very long, but they work hard and continuously to help their team—the beehive.

The Bible says, “Let all things be done decently and in order” (1 Corinthians 14:40).

Bees are created to show us the importance of order among many other things. The queen bee lays thousands of eggs in prepared cells in definite patterns and in specific sized cells to provide what is necessary for the well-being of the hive and to make sure there are enough bees to work together.

Some eggs are laid into drone cells, some into worker cells. The size of the cell determines whether the egg will become a male or female bee. Worker cells are smaller—and when the queen fits herself into the position to the lay the egg, her abdomen is squeezed and then the egg is fertilized so that it will make a female bee. These workers bees are really busy!

When the eggs hatch into larvae, busy nurse bees faithfully feed these little babies the best bee food around—royal jelly—for 3 days, and then a pollen mix for the time they are in the larva stage. Once the larva is mature enough, it is enclosed in its cell for the pupa stage, the time of more development.

When the pupa is old enough to come out of its cell as a new bee, it has its first job to do. It is able to do this responsibility and instinctively understands that it is good to do. Can you guess what this job is? It cleans its room—that is, its cell. A beehive needs to be kept clean to prevent disease. What jobs can we do in our homes that will help keep things clean and neat? Are you cheerfully doing those things? “Whatsoever your hand findeth to do, do it with all your might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10).

The beehive has a lot of bees in it. But are they all going around doing whatever they want? Are they being lazy? No, they work together especially hard to protect and help the Queen bee.

She is not much larger than the other bees, but she has some different characteristics, like being longer and having a larger abdomen.

We cannot hear bees giving instructions, but they can communicate with each other. Beekeepers know that they can quickly tell if there is not a queen in the hive. The beehive makes a sort of roaring sound and they are not ordered or calm….

We need a Leader in our lives or will not be peaceful, calm, and joyful. Do you know Him? His name is Jesus. “And He [Christ] is before all things, and by Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church” (Colossians 1:17, 18).

The queen lives longer than the other bees. She can live up to five years. She lay many thousands of eggs in her lifetime. Born into a cell like others (that was formed larger), she was fed royal jelly longer than the other bees, allowing for further development. Why? Because the hive knew that the other queen was getting old or sick or the hive was too full and they needed to move some of them out to a new home. (That is called swarming.) Since every hive needs a queen in order to grow, the bees make sure there is another.

At different times in their short life, the bees are given different jobs. How do they know what they should do? They know by what they are able to do. First, a bee can clean, so that’s what it does.

Then it can make wax, so it is busy repairing broken places and building new cells so that more honey can be stored, or more eggs laid in their baby baskets.

Then they have better communication skills. They know how to do their bee dance to give directions and how to listen to and follow the directions of others. They know how to fly a long way and to carry food back and not get lost or confused. They can even recognize which house (hive) is theirs even if there are 30 of them in one group.

There is also the job of guarding the hive from intruders. The bees that do this must be very diligent, with no sleeping on the job. They don’t think about whether they want to or not, they just do it.

“The hand of the diligent shall bear rule” (Proverbs 11:24).

Like the bees, we can work hard at the jobs that are given us to do, even if we don’t feel like it. As everyone grows older, they learn new skills with which to help others. God has given each one special abilities to be a blessing to the whole human family. So don’t worry about what you can’t do—be happy to do what you can! “Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an exalmple of the believers in word, in conversation, in spirit, in faith, in purity” (1 Timothy 4:12).

Bees like to work. You can tell. How? As soon as the weather is warm enough in the spring, they are out flying around looking for food. They don’t sleep in late, but as soon as it is bright enough, they are out of their hive beds. No one has to remind them of their duties, they get right to it. Even if the weather looks like it will be rainy, they don’t care. They have food to gather for their hive. Sometimes it gets very cold, but if it is just warm enough for them to fly, fly they do.

What an example for us! We shouldn’t make excuses for not doing things, but just get to it. We can build the “want to” into our characters as we practice working and enjoying it. Someone has to do the jobs. It might as well be a cheerful worker like you. “Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men” (Colossians 3:23).