Honeybees and the Art of Rabbinic Formation
In her five-year lifetime of service, a queen bee leaves her hive once. She flies away from her home to a drone congregation area, usually on the edge of a forest. Near the tips of the trees, she circles, mates with drones from hives in her region and thereby takes into herself the rich biological diversity of her species. Those encounters fundamentally shape her ability to contribute to and grow her home colony for the rest of her life. She will mother some full sisters; many more will be half-siblings, having the same mother but a different father. Some of these half-siblings have genes that make them excellent protectors of the hive; others better tolerate the drought and weather harbored in climate change; others excel […]
