Category Archives: Existence of God

Imagine at this moment that you are a honey bee. As a bee, you have been out in the far meadows, foraging for blossoms rich in nectar. Now you have found a fine field of blooms, just begging to be harvested. You quickly fill yourself with the sweet nectar and hurry back to your hive.

But it would take you weeks to harvest those waiting flowers by yourself, and meanwhile the hungry hive needs nourishment. But, there are hundreds of other worker bees who want to help, if only they knew where to go. The problem is, how do you tell them how to find the distant fields?

You might , perhaps, lead them personally. But that is not the bee solution to the problem. (We do not know why, but countless observations confirm that forager bees do not use this method. It may be because the scout needs to rest before going out again.)

No, the successful hunter tells the other bees about her find (all worker bees are female) by dancing to them. In her dance she imparts knowledge of both direction and distance to the find. And, in addition, she gives them a good indication of how rich a food source she has discovered. The other bees also learn what type of flower she has sampled, by the floral perfume clinging to her. Thus they have all the information they need to begin bringing in that harvest. But it begins slowly, in practice, for at first just a few bees follow the dancer’s directions. When they return and confirm her report with their own dances, the harvest begins in earnest.

This is the dance by which she announces a distant find: she semi-circles left, then runs straight back to the starting point, after which she semi-circles right and returns again; and keeps repeating this cycle for several minutes. Each time she dances the straight line dividing the circle, she waggles her abdomen vigorously. (“The Dancing Bees,” Karl von Frisch, Harcourt, Brace & Co., NY, 1955, p.116.) Had the source been nearby – within about 100 yards – the scout would have simply danced in a circle.

Dividing the circle tells the on-lookers that the field is more distant. The line dividing the circle gives the direction to the food source, in relation to the sun; and the vigor of waggling on that line indicates the richness of the find. But there is more: the bee also indicates distance to the find by her pace – the slower and more stately her progress, the further away is the supply of nectar. (ibid, , p. 118.)

This dance normally takes place on a vertical surface inside the hive. Here, straight up is equated with the direction to the sun, and the line halving the circle is danced at the proper angle from the upright to show the angle to the food source from the sun line. The audience bees make the mental adjustment of laying the dance pattern out flat, and then know the proper flight path.

The distance indicator does not show mere ground measurement to the goal, but is more accurate and useful to the bees, in that it tells them how long it takes to reach the food source (or perhaps the amount of energy needed to fly there). Thus, for example, the dance takes account of headwinds or marked changes in elevation to be encountered. (ibid, p. 121.)

As the day progresses, the dancer makes an allowance for the changed position of the sun in the sky. The sun itself need not be visible: any patch of blue sky will suffice, for it provides polarized light, to which bees’ eyes are sensitive. This tells them where the sun is, even if they cannot see it.

It has also been learned that bees can follow directions to food sources which cannot be reached directly – a field which lies around the shoulder of a mountain, for instance. The bee dancer gives the true azimuth from hive to source, but when other scouts set out to follow this direction, they come upon the obstruction before the indicated flight time is elapsed. They therefore know they must fly around the obstacle to reach the goal.

The German bee scientist, Karl von Frisch, who discovered this capability in bees, marvels at the accomplishment. “That they are able to fly by an indirect route and yet reconstruct the true direction without aid of ruler, protractor or drawing board, is one of the most wonderful accomplishments in the life of the bee, and indeed all creation.” (ibid, pp. 124-125.)

Indeed it is marvelous. As von Frisch pointed out, the bees have no protractors nor rulers, yet they are able to work out problems which would stump many untrained humans.

How were they equipped with such communicative skills and deductive powers? It will not do to argue that their ancestors gained this lore bit by bit, across the millenia. This ability is vital to bees today, and has always been so. Without it, hives cannot long survive and prosper. Bees had to have this ability from the beginning, or we would not have bees today.

It is quite apparent that this lore was a fundamental gift to bees, just as were their social instincts, their pollen sacks, and their long tongues adapted to sucking nectar, and all the other specializations which fitted then for their role on earth. “God made the animals of the earth after their kind, and the livestock after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:25)

Yes, God made the bees, and made them well; just as He created all of life, including you and me. Let us reverence Him for all His works, and give Him the glory which is His due.

(All Scripture is quoted from the World English Bible translation.)

Many years ago, a wise observer bent his gaze upon the lowly ant, and took notice of its incessant, purposeful activity. He then wrote for posterity this sage advice: “Go to the ant, you sluggard. Consider her ways, and be wise; which having no chief, overseer, or ruler, provides her bread in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest.” (Proverbs 6:6-8)

He wrote, of course, of the ants which he was familiar with in the Middle East. Later observations have shown that there are some 8,000 varieties of ants in the world. Some are large (up to an inch long), others small; some carry potent stingers in their tails, others do not; many live in nests, but some do not.

The Army Ants of Africa, for example, spend their entire existence on the march, moving in large columns which feed chiefly on insects which they have overrun. The and army rests periodically, while its queen lays her eggs, and these are then carried along when the march is resumed.

A number of types of ants are dubbed “honey ants,” from their habit of eating “honey-dew,” a sweet secretion of aphids. The ants actually “milk” the aphids, by gently stroking their abdomens with their antennae.

So close is the association of the Corn Root Aphid and Corn Field Ant that this species of aphid is almost totally dependent upon its ant “masters.” The ants take care of the aphids just as a farmer cares for his cows. Each autumn the ants collect aphid eggs, which they maintain over-winter in the their underground nests. In the spring the young aphids are moved to the roots of early weeds and grasses, which are the first “feeding grounds” available. Then after the corn fields are panted and sprouted, the farmer ants move their charges to their favorite food source, the roots of the corn plant. It has bee learned that the Corn Root Aphid is nearly helpless at finding its preferred food source without help from the ants.

But perhaps the most interesting ant livelihood is that of certain species of ants called “leaf-cutter ants.” The ants do not eat the bits of leaves which they drag down into their nests, but instead chew them into pulp and use them as garden material on which fungus grows. It is the fungus which the ants eat.

At least one species of leaf-cutter ant also “fertilizes” the leaf pulp with ant manure, and transplants fungus “starts” from an old garden – and then “weeds” the garden by making sure no other fungus creeps in. The entire ant colony lives on the fungus thus grown.

But how, we ask, do the ants know to do these things? How is it possible that ants “learned” to make gardens out of chewed leaves? And how do they understand that fertilizing their garden produces larger crops? Who taught them the art of transplanting? How did the Corn Field Ant become a livestock raiser?

A moment’s thought will show that the fungus-easting ants, for example, could never have survived while they laboriously learned how to cultivate their food little by little. Farmer ants and aphid-raising ants, and Army ants, and nest-building and non-nest-building ants of every description: all do what they do by instinct. They do as their kind has always done, through instinctive wisdom implanted in them by Someone greater than themselves.

We are pointed to a Master-Intelligence, capable of creating each form of life with its own intricate life processes – often intermeshed with those of other life-forms. Obviously, this is Someone far greater than man.

In the Bible, God asked Job: “Who has set the wild donkey free? Or who has loosened the bonds of the swift donkey… The wings of the ostrich wave proudly; but… she leaves her eggs on the earth, warms them in the dust, and forgets that the foot may crush them, or that the wild animal may trample them… Though her labor is in vain, she is without fear, because God has deprived her of wisdom, neither has he imparted to her understanding.” (Job 39:5, 13-17)

Truly, the more closely we delve into nature’s secrets, the more surely we can see God’s handiwork! The stamp of His creation is unmistakable, if we will but open our eyes.

(All Scripture is quoted from the World English Bible translation.)