Those who grow gardens know about the little insects called aphids that live on the stems of tender plants. The aphids pierce the plant with their mouths and suck out the sugary juices. When the gardener finds aphids, he usually tries to get rid of them. However, there are many places where they live unnoticed by the gardener.
The aphid uses only a small amount of this sugar in its body. The rest, known as “honeydew,” comes through its pores and appears as little droplets on its outer surface. Certain ants that search out these aphids know that by stroking the aphid’s back with their antennae, the aphid will give up the honeydew. This is then used as food for the ant colony. Sometimes ants are found taking care of a large colony of aphids. As they stroke the aphids’ backs, they look like milkmaids milking their cows.
If a good supply of honeydew is available, the ants eat their fill and then take it to other ants in their nest. These ants, known as “honey pots,” eat all the honey brought to them until their abdomens are stretched to their limits and they look like round, amber-colored balls. When they can’t hold any more honeydew, they crawl to the ceiling of a chamber in the colony where they hang upside down and “go into storage.” Sometimes they hang this way for a year or more, a remarkable feat, because when full of honey they weigh about eight times their normal weight! A colony might have three hundred or more of these honey pots. In winter months when the aphids are gone and food is scarce outside, the honey pots allow their companions to draw the rich nectar from them.
Strangely, the aphids don’t seem to mind the ants stroking them, and maybe they enjoy it. Sometimes the ants build an earthen barricade around their “cows,” apparently to make sure they stay there. The eggs of the aphids are sometimes taken into the ants’ nest before winter and given good care. When they hatch in spring, the ants carry them to the new shoots of juice-producing plants, and then move them from time to time to the best spots.
The ants greatly enjoy the flavor of this honey, but Scripture tells us of something that has even more sweetness: “The judgments [words] of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them is Thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward” (Psalm 19:9-119The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. 10More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. 11Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward. (Psalm 19:9‑11)). Does the name of the Saviour, as well as His words, have that sweet meaning to you?
ML-08/02/2009