The Wonders of God’s Creation
Without the work of the honeybee the world would soon starve. Their work in pollinating blossoms is essential to the growth of all kinds of fruit, vegetables, grains and other plant foods, as well as the reproduction of many other flowering plants.
The hive of the honeybee is the most perfect example of community living to be found anywhere. As many as 50,000 bees will work tether in perfect harmony and each will give its life, if necessary, to protect the hive.
Working without the use of any tools, they build a hive of honeycombs composed of hexagonal (six-sided) cells. In one square inch there are exactly 4.83 cells. How do they make such an exact measurement? No one knows, other than God, who has created them and given them their unusual skills.
Whether setting up a hive prided by a beekeeper, or in a hollow tree or in any other location, the work always follows the same pattern. To start the comb young worker bees produce beeswax in special glands in their bodies. The wax oozes through tiny holes in the body as small flakes. A bee usually makes eight flakes at a time. The bee picks them off its body with its legs and moves them up to its jaws. After chewing the wax it attaches it to the ceiling. Then, working down, the cells are built one by one all the way to the base. Several groups of bees start building from different parts of the ceiling, gradually all being brought together to make a complete comb. Where the sections join together the result is still the same—all adjoining cells measure exactly 4.83 to the inch! They need not run back and forth during construction to make sure they will match when coming together.
Thousands of bees are busy right at this time, each adding its tiny bit to what others have started and doing this without any leader. The walls of the waxen cells, only two or three-thousandths of an inch thick, are so fragile that you could easily crush them in your fingers, yet strong enough to support the weight of the comb as well as the weight of the bees working on it.
Eventually the comb is completed. Then the workers turn their attention to making honey which they use as food. The bee, having filled its stomach with nectar from several blossoms, often comes home with such a load it can barely fly. When nectar is in a bee’s stomach, certain chemicals are added to it. The nectar is sucked back through the mouth and placed into a cell of the honeycomb. There the water in the nectar evaporates and the chemicals change the nectar into honey.
Surely we need not ask where these busy workers get the wisdom needed to build these complex homes, nor how they work together in such harmony. God, “which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvelous things without number” (Job 5:99Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number: (Job 5:9)) is the One who has set their ways and kept them in the same pattern since the day He first created them.
No wonder, as David thought on God’s ways, so many of which pride benefits to man, he could say: “Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!” Psalms 107:88Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men! (Psalm 107:8). But His greatest work of all was on Calvary where He became the Saviour of sinners. Is He your Saviour?
ML-08/10/1980