bee Archives - DOES GOD EXIST? TODAY

November 9, 2018November 7, 2018

Honeybee Clusters – How They Survive

Among the most interesting things to see in the natural world are honeybee clusters. When bees search for a new location, the queen will move to a tree branch or some other surface she can hang onto. The worker bees cluster around her making a large ball. Researchers have noticed that the ball of bees changes shape as various forces like wind or vibration are directed at it. The changing shape fine-tunes the cluster to resist the elements protecting the queen and the cluster as a whole. The question is how the bees know where and how to move to hold the ball together.

Researchers at Harvard University have found that the strain sensed by each bee is the answer. When a bee feels stress from the wind or some other external force, they will move to an area of greater strain. Many bees moving to protect the cluster flattens the cluster’s shape making it more resistant to the source of the stress. The bees are taking more strain on themselves for the good of the cluster.

In fundamental physics, we know that Young’s modulus is the ratio of stress to strain and every material has a value. Understanding the values is critical to engineering structures to prevent material failure leading to the collapse of the structure. Apparently, bees have a high Young’s modulus designed into their genetic makeup to allow the honeybee cluster to survive.

Researchers emphasize that our understanding of insect behavior is in its infant stage. As concerns grow over the loss of bees that are important pollinators, more research is of great importance. Our understanding of God’s designs in the natural world continues to grow. The complexity of even such simple things as honeybee clusters tells us we have a lot to learn. It also tells us much about God’s wisdom and engineering design.
–John N. Clayton © 2018

Reference: Science News, October 27, 2018, page 5.

September 29, 2017October 5, 2018

Lesson from the Bees

For a bee to fill its honey stomach with nectar to take back to the colony, it has to visit from 100 to 1500 flowers. The honey stomach is a special pouch for the nectar, and it can hold about 70 mg (0.0025 oz). To make one pound (.454 kg) of honey requires 50,000 bee-loads of nectar. You might think that this is a very inefficient and poorly designed system. However, we can learn a lesson from the bees.

Every year beekeepers in the United States collect about 163 million pounds (74 million kg) of honey. Besides that, each bee colony will eat between 120 and 200 pounds (54 to 90 kg) of its own honey in a year. The bee’s system for producing honey is highly efficient, and well coordinated in the hive. How is that possible?

Two things make honey production productive. There are enormous numbers of bees, and they all work together. Each bee contributes a very small amount, and each one has a job to do. The hive contains many bees with one purpose, goal, and objective—to make the hive work. They are each 100% committed to the purpose of getting the job done. There is no squabbling, no power politics, no division, and no jealousy among the bees.

We can learn a lesson from the bees. When Jesus told His followers to preach the gospel to every creature, He didn’t tell them something that was impossible to do. He also prayed for unity. He knew that division was the one thing that would stop His followers from getting the job done.

In Chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians, Paul wrote about the body of Christ, His Church. He said that “we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body” even though we are diverse in our race and status. Then in verses 24-25 he adds, “But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.”

Think of the different status and abilities of the bees in a hive working together for a common cause and learn a lesson from the bees.
–John N. Clayton and Roland Earnst © 2017

March 24, 2017November 7, 2018

Bee Facts

In addition to yesterday’s article on the use of quantum mechanics by bees, here are some more incredible bee facts about these amazing creatures:

– Bees have five eyes–two large compound eyes and three simple eyes (ocelli) used to detect light intensity. A worker bee’s eyes have 7,000 lenses.

– Bee wings have an electrostatic charge which attracts pollen.

-A bee has two sets of wings. Rapid slapping generates warmth and evaporates water from nectar to make honey.

– Bees have wing hooks which enable the bee to use one of each set of wings or use the wings together for maximum efficiency.

– The proboscis, which is an airtight straw-like tube, sucks up nectar and also works in reverse to feed offspring from a honey stomach.

-The bee has a mandible with jaws that help bite and pack pollen as well as shape wax for building the honeycomb.

– Leg brushes scrape pollen from front to back where it collects in the pollen sac attached to the rear leg.

– Bees have a honey stomach which is a second reservoir where they temporarily store nectar before it is regurgitated.

– A worker bee can carry more than half its weight in pollen and can visit up to 100 flowers in one trip.

– A queen bee lays 1500 eggs a day and lives for three to seven years.