They sting, make honey, and provide us with one of the clearest proofs that there must be a God out there. So, what is so special about a bee? Did you know that there are over 3,000 species that live in North America? One of these, the honeybee, is a fascinating communal creature, endowed with genius unmatched in both the insect and human realm.
If you ever looked into a beehive, fascination would begin to build in your mind. The tiny honeybee has literally built an entire city of cells or cones. Each cell is always six-sided and all are in perfect symmetry. These cities can consist of up to 10,000 to 20,000 separate cells and are produced from wax from their own bodies. The hexagonal shape was chosen by the bee because it knew that it would provide them with the maximum amount of storage space needed. The bee also knew that a six-sided construction would be much stronger than, say, a triangular or square makeup.
Bees, although they can’t verbally communicate with one another, speak to one another through chemicals. Through this means, they can quickly give directions to others if there is danger nearby or to tell where the entrance to the hive is. Honeybees also perform a special dance for their coworkers when they have found the source of nectar. Amazingly, this dance indicates the direction as well as exactly how far away the honey is. Blessed with a keen sense of smell, the honeybee can tell if there is even one stranger bee in a hive of hundreds of others, by its odor alone.
One final quality of our friend the bee is that he is a marvelous thermostat. It is characteristic of the honeybee to keep the inside of their hives at a constant temperature of about 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Bees like it hot.
When the weather is cool bees cluster. They move around and breathe faster, thus raising their body temperature and heating up the hive. When it starts to get too hot, some bees act as air conditioners, fanning their wings, causing a breeze and cooling to come to the hive. Other bees bring water into the hive. They in turn are met at the entrance by coworkers, who take the water droplets and spread them around the hive. Still other workers go about the hive fanning their wings to evaporate the water and cool the hive. All of these actions bring the hive temperature back down to 95 degrees F. What wonderful teamwork, and just think – no costly heating or air-conditioning bills.
A bee can’t read a book, can’t speak a word, can’t spell its name, nor does it even know it has a name. Yet bees possess such creative and design powers that one has to wonder how such knowledge could have found its way into their tiny bee brains in the first place. But no one can deny that our little visit into his home, the beehive, has shown us behavior that has to be the product of a mind of great intelligence or a fabulous “God-given instinct.”