One of the great joys of beekeeping is the chance to witness cooperative behavior in many forms, like the festooning bee-line pictured above. But bees are also pretty extraordinary as individuals.

A few weeks ago, a dear friend sent me a wonderful article about how honeybees move in water when their wings are too wet to fly (thank you, A!). Some insects paddle, some use their legs, and some just float, but honeybees tilt their wings to create tiny waves on the water’s surface, and the waves then propel them forward. The shadow-lit images of this motion are especially mesmerizing, revealing the not-quite circular pattern that gently moves the bee along.

Dear ones, we stand on the edge of a new year, a new decade, and maybe a new era. Many days we’ll be waterlogged, unable to take flight, and we might not be surrounded by our cooperative hive when this happens.

We can thrash around to try to gain a footing, or we can float along and hope for the best.

Let’s do something more interesting, more beautiful.

Let’s make our own waves.