Life has
had a bit of a buzz to it over the past week. I went to the CIPD’s inaugural Festival of Work and had a wonderful
time connecting with friends and contacts, putting faces to names and learning
about new products and services. I particularly enjoyed hearing Garry Kasparov's thoughts on technology (below shows him speaking beside a picture of his beating a number of computers simultaneously in 1985 - he famously lost to Deep Blue in 1997 - a moment he now sees as a triumph for humans, rather than his personal loss. He is confident that we have a great future ahead of us thanks to AI and technology.)
I also had the good fortune to attend a
splendid garden party at Marlborough House (great fun, despite the rain). We
were raising money for Bees For
Development - a charity that helps disadvantaged people, living in some of
the world’s poorest regions, to lift themselves out of extreme poverty through
becoming beekeepers. There was a fascinating display of traditional hives, these ones are from Africa: a bamboo hive from Uganda and a split cane one from Ethiopia - these would usually be plastered on the outside with a mixture of soil and cow dung and given a grass roof to protect from the rain).
We were joined by
some true Queen Bees of UK society, including Martha
Kearney (a patron of the charity), Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall
and Mary
Berry (who was sporting a wonderful jacket covered in embroidered bees).
Bees
have been quite a focus for me.
Last
weekend I gave a tour of my beehive to some neighbours, a delightful couple
with their equally delightful teenage sons – they had won the viewing as a
prize in a local charity auction. The bees behaved beautifully (and they have
made some amazing wax constructions inside the hive where there was a gap in
the brood box, which made the inspection even more interesting for my guests).
I
enjoyed explaining some of the weird facts about bees – did you know that:
- the queen can select what sex egg she lays, but that her choice is based on the shape of the cell that the workers bees have made for her;
- pollen is multi-coloured and so is honey (it all depends on the plant from which it originates);
- a worker bee will usually live for up to 6 weeks but a queen can live for up to 5 years (it is believed that a bee lives for circa 500 miles of flight – an over-wintering bee, which flies less, can live for a number of months);
- humans have been using bee products (wax and honey) for over 9,000 years;
- honey is almost the only food that doesn’t go off and remains in an edible state (so ignore those “best before” labels) – jars of honey have been discovered in ancient Egyptian tombs and their contents were found to be still edible;
- the average bee will make a 12th of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime; and
- the male bees (drones) have big eyes, furry backs and no stings (they also do very little to help with the work of the hive but get fed and cared for and are left to do their own thing until its time to buzz off and have sex).
We laughed
about the number of similarities between bees and humans. All in all, my guests
and I had a good time. However, this is not a post about bees or even their
resemblance to people. It is what happened afterwards that made me think…
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| Drawing of a bee by Dame Judi Dench one of a number of postcards auctioned at the Bee Garden Party |
Late this
afternoon, there was a knock on our door – the family had returned with two
boxes of eggs as a thank-you gift, as they said that they had had such a good
time. How wonderful! The eggs had been laid by their hens (London is more rural
than many people think) and there were different types in each box – dinky
little Bantam ones and a larger collection, coloured a delicate shade of blue,
laid by Araucana hens. It was the eggs that have got my brain whirring and made
me decide to blog.
Are
chickens eggs any different if they have blue, white or brown shells? Are some
better for you than others? Why do yolks vary in colour from deep orange to a
pale yellow?
So this
is, indirectly, becoming a post about diversity.
What
makes you feel you are different? Is there a difference or are appearances
deceptive and superficial? Why do we reject and fear people who are different
to us? What can we do to overcome stereotypes? Why are some people
“hen-pecked”, whilst others like to be dominant and “rule the roost”?
Perhaps
we should start with the hens…
The claim
that Brown
eggs are better for you than white ones is a myth. All hens’ eggs have the
potential to be the same in taste and nutritional value, regardless of the
colour of their shell. The colour of egg that a hen lays is dictated by the
colour of its ear lobe (yes, hens have earlobes – it is a small feather-free
area just below the bird’s ear). Hens with white lobes lay white eggs, those
with red or brown
skinned lobes lay brown eggs.
Many people erroneously believe that brown
eggs are more nutritious and/or taste better than white ones. It is true that
they usually cost more, but this is primarily due to the fact that the hens
that lay them are larger and hence require more food, so their eggs are more
expensive to produce. White eggs, due to the smaller size of the birds, are more
cost efficient for commercial egg farmers to produce than brown (or indeed blue
or green), which is why they are more common in the shops. It is the hens’ diet
and the environment where they live that makes the difference as far as
nutrition is concerned; for example, hens that roam outdoors produce eggs with 3
to 4 times the vitamin D content of their indoor-reared, restricted counterparts
that have no access to direct sunlight. The environment for the hen is
important for the quality of the egg, as is the condition of the bird: stressed
chickens and older, tired hens or those that are hen-pecked and hence last to
get near food lay eggs with thinner shells.
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| "Dead Hen" by Elizabeth Frink, 1957 |
I see
similarities between egg-laying hens and humans in the workplace (which is not
to say that people are battery hens) – like the birds, most workers have little
immediate control over their environment (even changing the temperature and air
conditioning can prove problematical). I am convinced that every individual has
the potential to produce great results – regardless of colour, race, background
or size. Like chickens, people deliver better outcomes when they are in a place
that they find stress-free, supportive and conducive towards their giving of
their best. We each need a situation that suits our physical well-being, with
daylight, fresh air, an appropriate ambient temperature for us not to be in
discomfort, and adequate space, a workplace where we can perform well without
feeling under undue pressure or fearing harassment or bullying from those
around us. If you want to know more about how to create a fantastic workplace,
I urge you to read Neil
Usher’s excellent book: The
Elemental Workplace.
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| Hens with their Young, by Edgar Hunt 1905 |
Hens,
like humans, are not always kind to each other – there’s a reason why we use
the phrase “hen-pecked”. It is true that hens have a pecking order with some
dominant and others having to play a more submissive role in their community.
The term ‘pecking order’ for hens was first coined in 1921 by Thorleif
Schjelderup-Ebbe to describe the hierarchy of flock dynamics and it came
into popular usage in the 1930s. A flock in the wild is as strong as its
weakest member. There is a dominance hierarchy
in many societies and it is closely linked to the survival of the fittest – it
serves a useful purpose in that it prevents the need for constant fighting - it
ensures that the most dominant in a group can have access to limited resources
ahead of the others and thereby maintain health and strength. Hens will peck
and drive away an ill or injured member of their flock (a survival trait that
has remained as a behaviour amongst domesticated fowl). It is important not to
introduce fewer than 2 hens at a time to an existing flock (and even then they
need to be kept apart and integrated gently over a period of weeks), unless you wish to risk a
bird being literally pecked to death.
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| Introducing hens |
Humans are unlikely to kill a new colleague; we are not
hens – we are rational beings and can control our baser urges. However, we are
often unfriendly and unwilling to allow a new employee to socialise with an
existing group of friends. It can feel very lonely and isolating joining a new
team. Try not to be bird-brained and foul (see what I did there); a little
kindness towards others can make a big difference to a new colleague – you never
know, you also might make a new friend.
We, like
hens, need to be well cared for. It is true that an employer has a duty of care
towards the workers. However, we also owe it to ourselves to be careful
ourselves. There are things each of us can do to help keep ourselves physically
and mentally, including, but not limited to:
- exercising,
- eating a balanced diet,
- sleeping for long enough on a regular basis to enable our bodies and minds to recharge,
- drinking sufficient water to meet our bodies’ needs,
- giving ourselves time in an environment that helps with our personal well-being (this could be in a gym, an art gallery, a field or forest or by the sea or near water)
These all
help us to remain healthy and productive. Do you make the effort to be kind to
yourself?
And
finally – time to answer that long-asked question – “What came first, the
chicken or the egg?” The answer is the egg:
hard-shelled eggs were laid by reptiles long before chickens came into
existence.
We can
learn a lot from the birds and the bees.
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| Ukrainian painted egg |
