03/22/2026
This friends is what is know as robbing. Robbing occurs when a weak or dead hive is found by another colony and they come in and strip it clean. Unlike orienting, which may look chaotic but is actually quite ordered and calm, robbing is pandemonium. Bees will circle a hive looking for any possible cracks or holes to get into. I wish I would have gotten a video of when I took the lid off of the hive and a hoard of intruders burst forth in flight.
(As I proofread this, I realized, if you choose to read on, it’s very possible your toes will be stepped on. So you can stop here and appreciate the bees, or you can read on and hopefully be challenged to never look at yourself or a beehive the same way again. Consider yourself forewarned.)
This whole scene reminds me of a story Jesus told in John 10: “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy…”
There have been many analogies God has given me pertaining to bees and the spiritual life. I will say this at the front…these are images that God gave ME and are in no way perfect corollaries to the way the Christian life actually is or is to function. They may mean absolutely nothing to you and thats fine.
One image is that of the queen bee and her role in the hive as its head (I.e. for the purposes of this image: the Father) and how her pheromones give the colony order, purpose and cohesion (I.e. in this image, the pheromones are acting as the Holy Spirit.) When the queen is present and healthy her pheromones permeate the hive, and those closest to her, her retinue as they are called, take that pheromone and spread it to others until it reaches every corner of the hive. So too, when the Father is in his rightful place in our lives, his spirit permeates us from the inside out, and those followers who are immersed in the power of the spirit and walking in step with the spirit, take that same spirit and help to spread it to every corner of the church and beyond so that the body of Christ may be one, unified in purpose, living in harmony, one with another and standing guard to defeat the enemy who stands outside the gate ready to come in when he sees an opportunity. Yet because the church is so disconnected and the father is not in his rightful place in most “believers” lives, the spirit is not permeating the church and the enemy is allowed to come in among us and steal, kill and destroy.
But lest we stop there and admit defeat, we must read on for Jesus goes on to say, “My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.”
So I ask you…how is your life? Are you being stollen from, killed and destroyed? Or is it rich and satisfying? The vast, VAST majority of the people I talk to, when they are honest, fall into the first camp. The enemy has come in and they are losing ground quickly. I was there. I hit absolute rock bottom. Ready to abandon this mortal coil and accept whatever eternity came my way. But God! He was not done with me yet. It wasn’t about my striving for perfection. It wasn’t about finding my own fulfillment. It wasn’t about having my needs met. It was about coming to a place of total and complete surrender, where my only prayer became “take me or fill me but I cannot continue like this any more.” And so he came, he sat down on his thrown in my life and he filled me with his spirit like nothing I had ever experienced before and he allowed me to walk in victory. No longer owing anyone anything and no longer being owed anything by anyone. Is life still hard, yes. Are there still road blocks, obstacles and car crashes, yes. But these things are just physical. They don’t have to define me, defeat me or destroy me. They can no longer rob my joy. My life is rich and satisfying.
Bringing it full circle…the same thing can happen in the hive. Where once chaos and disorder abound, when a healthy queen is restored to the hive her pheromones begin to permeate the colony and order and peace are restored.
If your life is lacking peace and is no longer rich and satisfying…I would love to talk to you about it.
