The worker bee is a dedicated servant of the hive. Throughout its short life – only 4 or 5 weeks in the busy seasons – it gives of itself incessantly and unselfishly.
Indeed, if necessary it will literally pour out its life in defending the hive against intrusions of man or animal. The bee’s stinger is barbed, like a harpoon, and the bee cannot pull it loose from flesh or hide. Instead, the stinger detaches from the bee’s body, together with its associated nerve center and poison gland. The result is that the gland continues to pump poison into the intruder until the stinger is removed. The bee, however, has suffered a mortal wound, and soon dies. (“The Dancing Bees,” Karl von Frisch, Harcourt, Brace & Co., NY, 1955, pp. 38-39.)
This willingness to destroy itself for the good of the colony, and its built-in weapon system adapted to such destruction, are both typical of the way bees are fitted to their life work. The young adult worker begins working as soon as she climbs out of her brood cell. Her tasks, however, will vary according to a progression of adaptations within her body, which are exactly suited to the needs of the hive.
Her very first duty will be to clean brood cells for the next generation, and she may start by tidying up her own chamber. Later she will help keep occupied brood cells warm, and meanwhile thoroughly explore the interior of the hive.
But after a few days, a food-producing gland in her head becomes fully developed, and the young worker then becomes a wet-nurse, or foster mother, to hungry larvae. She will take upon herself the rearing of two or three larva, feeding them between two and three thousand times each, during the six days of the larval state. During this time they will increase 500-fold in weight! (ibid, p. 22.)
The vast majority of larvae will be fed “royal jelly” from the nurses’ food-glands for only the first two days. Thereafter they will receive a mixture of honey and pollen. Only in the case of future queens are specially selected larvae fed entirely upon royal jelly. (This difference in diet appears to be the sole factor in the creation of sexually mature potential queens, instead of workers, whose sexual apparatus does not mature.)
A new phase of the worker’s career begins about the 10th day of her life. By this time her feeding gland has shrunk into impotency, and wax-producing glands on her abdomen have come into production. She now begins house-keeping duties, including construction and repair of the waxy cells comprising the hive. She will also help receive incoming loads of nectar and pollen from the foraging bees and store these foods in the proper cells.
Other duties shared by her generation include keeping the hive clean by removing refuse, including the bodies of bees which have died. Toward the end of this phase, which lasts for about 10 days, some of her group will become hive guards. The will examine all incoming bees to make sure they are of that hive, attack intruding wasps and other honey-robbers, and deliver the first attack on larger threats to hive security.
At the end of the housekeeping phase, the worker bee graduates to forager status. If her generation lives in the spring or summer, she will spent the rest of her life searching for food for the colony. (Bees reared it the autumn usually live over the winter in temperate zones, and thus may live for several months. The hive is much less active then, and they do not wear themselves out so quickly.)
This specialization of labor, coinciding with the needed physical changes to make the work possible, cannot be an accident. Every element of life in the hive is finely tuned to the good of all.
It is also will worth noting that what is done to the good of the hive also turns out to be for the good of all nature, for the foraging bees play a vital role in pollinating the flowers they visit. Thus we see that an individual bee’s existence is a tiny but important part of a larger entity – the colony – which in turn has its part to play in a still larger relationship. And, if we trace the relationship further we would see that pollination of flowering plants is an important link in the world’s food chain. Bees do far more than provide honey for man’s sweet tooth!
Surely it is evident that a master-design lies behind such intricate relationships, on so many levels. There is such harmony, such inter-meshing of lifestyles, that all nature unknowingly works in harness together to maintain the habitat for all.
Who is the master designer? There can be only one, and He is God. The Psalmist recognized this fully when he said: “The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their food from God.” (Psalm 104:21) Yes, even powerful lions in their prime fit into God’s pattern and are subject to the limitations He places.
Man also is a part of God’s plan. In fact, the Bible indicates we are the purpose for it all. God created us to fellowship with Himself. It is His good pleasure that we should know Him. And when we do, we will take our rightful role in His grand design, just as does the selfless bee.
(All Scripture is quoted from the World English Bible translation.)