The $23 bug

There are five or so honeybees living in a little plastic cage in a little paper bag on the kitchen counter, where they will probably reside for the next few days. One of them is a Queen bee, who is being brought in as a sort of "turnaround CEO" for the hive that survived the winter, but whose current Queen's performance has been erratic at best.

We paid $23 for the lot--Her Apian Majesty and her small retinue of workers-in-waiting. That's up about five bucks from just two or three years ago. But personnel is everything, particularly as the workers will stage a palace coup if we don't. They've made one desultory attempt as it is, so it's merely a matter of time before they get serious about it. Although having the workers take the job of hatchet-man upon themselves is cheaper on the "cost" side of the balance sheet, you're guaranteed a population drop, just at the time of year when they're supposed to be ramping up for summer production.

In essence, twenty-three clams are saving us nearly a generation in worker-brood, plus a considerable gamble that any "homegrown" Queen will return from a successful mating flight. (We've had that fail to happen, btw.) In that light, spending that much money for a few insects--in truth only one of those insects--seems far, far less ridiculous.

Plus it also highlights the difference between cost and investment. For instance, I think of the company picnic or the tired ritual of the holiday party is a cost. Sure, it's billed as a morale-booster, but people have come to expect it, and so its benefit is not lasting. If the company instead put the money it spent on food, booze and entertainment toward tuition, or seminars, or web training, or even books for the office library, it would far more likely to reap the benefits of that investment for months, if not years.

Of course there are times when there is no money to be spared. But there is always, always a huge difference between cutting costs and refusing to invest. And the knowledge of that difference, IMO, is the difference between smart management and corporate feudalism.