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Tired of Temper Tantrums on the Job? No More Babysitting
Getting Your Team Mentally Set for the Season
Last week was about you getting your own head right. This week is about your crew.
When spring arrives, the hives start booming, pollination bookings come in hot, then suddenly half your clients want bees on site yesterday.
This is the business you chose to be in. The question is whether your people meet the pressure with clarity and composure, or with that familiar cocktail of hurry, frayed tempers, and preventable mistakes.
Leadership at this point doesn’t come from motivational posters in lunch room walls. It comes from the steady, routine work of creating the conditions where competent adults can do good work at speed.
A useful way to keep yourself ahead is to think in four corners: direction, energy, empowerment, and execution—and to walk that fence line daily. Miss a corner and the bees (and the work) will wander.
Corner Two: Energy (set the tone)
Atmosphere isn’t luck; it’s leadership. The beekeeper-in-charge sets the tone. If your voice stays measured when the weather turns, a load of bees tips, or a grower changes their pollination block at the last minute, the team holds steady. If you flare up, you’ll get theatre in return.
Your job is to be deliberately un-dramatic.
Create a professional climate: brisk, civil, slightly irreverent about inconvenience, and respectful of effort. A quick “good catch” for the person who spotted a queenless hive or avoided a truck mishap does more for morale than any end-of-season speech.
When fatigue sets in mid-season, the fix isn’t fireworks—it’s oxygen: a brief reset, a clear next step, and a reminder of progress made. Adults don’t need cheerleading; they need to see the ship is being steered.
Corner Three: Empowerment (grow capacity)
Many beekeeping business owners try to outrun complexity by carrying it all themselves. It’s heroic—and it fails. The alternative is developing people in the work: delegating with reasoning, not just dumping tasks.
Your aim should be to become progressively unnecessary. Give someone ownership of pollination delivery or extraction flow. When they come with a question you could answer in three seconds, resist the reflex—ask a question back that forces them to think.
Feedback should be brief, timely, and specific: what went well in that hive inspection, what to adjust on the next run. Soon you’ll wonder why you carried so much alone.
Corner Four: Execution (deliver under pressure)
This is where intentions harden into results or evaporate under stress. Execution means disciplined delivery: breaking complex jobs into steps, removing obstacles, and keeping attention on the few priorities that matter most.
Short, regular reviews keep accountability high without micromanaging. When the nectar flow is on or growers are waiting at the gate, you keep the main thing the main thing. That’s not micromanaging—it’s keeping the wire tight so the whole fence holds.
Shifting corners as the season changes
You don’t pick one corner and stay there. You move.
- When uncertainty spikes—bad weather, shifting pollination demand—lead with direction: restate the plan and first steps.
- When tempers fray or fatigue bites, lean on energy: lower the noise, steady the room, remind people of progress.
- When bottlenecks repeat—like late truck returns or extraction delays—switch to empowerment: hand over ownership and coach.
- When the seasion is on and the work is there for the taking, tighten execution and get on with it.
Your own bias
Every leader has a default corner:
- Some are operators, thriving in daily hive checks but neglecting the bigger picture.
- Some are strategists, planning winter feeding programmes but never following through.
- Some are encouragers, good with people but slow to make tough calls.
- Some are drill sergeants, hitting production targets but leaving burned-out staff behind.
Pick the one you over-index on. Then pick one to strengthen this month.
The point of all this?
You can’t control the rain, the nectar flow, or the grower who calls late. But you can control the environment your people work in: clear direction, steady tone, growing capability, disciplined delivery. Walk those four corners daily. Fix what’s loose.
You’ll get the pollination jobs done, the honey extracted, and compliance ticked off. More importantly, you’ll finish with a crew still sharp, still speaking, and still keen to return next season—which in this industry, is the nearest thing to compound interest.