Turning nectar into honey may be the bee’s most precious USP and its crowning glory in terms of output, but the way in which bees are able to achieve this relies on a very strict operational strategy and a highly organised system of information management. The world of bees and the world of information and management accountancy might not share the same end product, but parallels can be drawn between the two, seemingly unrelated systems, and some interesting learning insights can be gained from doing so.
Management of systems
Prof. Dr. Alexander Brüggen, Professor of Management Accounting at Maastricht University’s School of Business and Economics, is used to working in a cross-disciplinary way and yet it is his hobby as a beekeeper, which provides the focus of this particular learning insight. In this video, Alexander describes how bees operate within a very strict role hierarchy and how their tasks are divided between the bee community within the hive. Alexander identifies one of the key successes of the beehive is how the bees have developed innovative methods of communication to distribute the information effectively across their 50,000-strong hive. Bees also employ their own control mechanism in the form of a guard bee, whose responsibilities include checking who is entering and who is leaving the hive, a kind of bee bouncer. This control mechanism and information distribution system keeps the beehive operating smoothly and it is the management of these systems, which, in the end is what keeps the hive alive.
Watch the video
This video was created as part of the Fast Forward programme together with the Province of Limburg.
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