I was surprised this afternoon by my husband being less than happy after we checked in with the bees. The hive that we re-Queened last month has apparently changed management yet again, this time on its own initiative. Because of the earlier disruptions, it's difficult to tell whether it swarmed (in which the old Queen and about half the hive leave to found a new colony) or a superceded (the honeybee equivalent of a coup d'etat). For our purposes, the point is purely academic.
Despite having their third Queen in as many months, though, it looks as though that hive might finally be making some traction on ramping up its population. We're lucky that the workers have been putting away nectar and pollen during the interregnums, so there's no reason--barring drought or disaster--why we shouldn't be able to harvest honey two months hence. It just won't be a bumper crop, and that may have been what irked my husband, particularly after the gamble of introducing a new Queen. (Fortunately, we don't count on making money from this hobby, or the $23 might have been the difference between profit and loss on the hive's 2009 balance sheet.)
Fortunately, by the time we left for home, he had found the silver lining in the situation, namely that the new Queen's children would likely be at least half-Wisconsin in pedigree--the new Queen having mated with drones from local hives--and thus more likely to survive the winter. Me, I was just happy that, for the first time in several weeks, we could button up the hives and go home without feeling the need to rush back with more equipment, insects or what-have-you to nudge Mother Nature toward doing things our way. And, if the hive survives the winter, we can reasonably expect to let its Queen take care of business in 2010 without any interference from us.
But the incident highlights the implicit expectation that investment always equals return--as if there's some cosmic quid pro quo for any venture at which we pitch our money and/or time. Intellectually, we know that there's not. But what I don't understand is why, when investments are sanitized (as mutual funds, 401Ks, etc.) for mass consumption, that publishing the oh-by-the-way-you-could-lose-your-shorts warning before the historical performance numbers isn't mandatory for the investment portfolio booklets. Because the risk needs to be driven home, well before anyone breaks out the dollar-goggles. Always. Either that, or perhaps investing should be barred for anyone who hasn't farmed. Or kept bees. But, then, I might be a wee bit biased about that...
