January 20, 2022

#29: Lead Like a Bee with Shannon DelVecchio

24 minutes

Shannon DelVecchio has always been drawn to many things—running, hiking, gardening, photography, writing, reading, travel, and most recently—beekeeping. She’s at her happiest and most fulfilled not by mastering a specific hobby/topic/task that she loves, but LEARNING about it. Beekeeping hit Shannon’s radar in December 2019 when her husband registered for "Bee School" that Winter. The pair became the proud keepers of 10,000 bees on April 18th, 2020.

Top 3 Takeaways

Embrace the learning curve—Like beekeeping, leadership is a deep subject; commit to making the investment of time and energy required to excel in the craft.

Seek to create optimal conditions—As a leader, you can’t directly control the outcome, but you can take steps to create an optimal environment that will increase your team’s likelihood of success.

Excitement is contagious—Teams can become abuzz (sorry about that) with energy and enthusiasm if you let them; stoke the flames of excitement about your mission and your team achievements whenever you can.

From the Source

“The running joke with beekeepers is if you ask 10 beekeepers one question you'll get 11 answers.“

“I am literally blind to the colony's behavior as they go about their work inside in complete darkness.”

“The more excited a scout bee appears, the more likely other bees will go out and check out this new location. And when they come back, if they're excited, they start dancing as well.”

“The queen is not the dictator, and your colony actually can get to a point where they've decided the queen is failing us and we are actually going to prepare to replace her.”

Connect with Shannon

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shannon.w.delvecchio

Links

“Hive Help Wanted” trivia source: https://www.hobbyfarms.com/9-hive-jobs-of-honey-bees-2/

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By Matt Poepsel, PhD

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