Beekeeping

Scott stars the book with a homely beekeeping metaphor. Honey collection, the author says, was a complicated thing in the pre-modern times. Harvesting the honey meant driving the bees away and often destroying the colony. The arrangement of brood chambers and honey cells followed complex patterns that differed from hive to hive-patterns which did not permit smooth extractions. The modern beehive, on the other hand, is designed to solve the problem of the beekeeper. This separates the brood with a device called a “queen excluder.” Which makes it impossible for the queen to lay eggs above a certain amount. In addition, the wax cells are neatly arranged allowing easy extraction of honey, wax, and propolis.

From the point of view of the beekeeper, the modern hive is an organized, “legible” hive that allows the beekeeper to examine the state of the colony and the queen, measure its honey production (by weight), enlarge or contract the size of the hive by standard units, move it to a new location and, above all, ex-tract just enough honey.

Just as it saves a prison hassle and money if all prisoners wear uniforms of the same type, color and length, any concession to diversity is likely to result in a corresponding increase in staff time and budget costs. The one-size-fits-all.