A beehive may have 20,000 to 40,000 or more bees, including the all-important queen, a few male (drone) bees, and workers. The whole activity of a hive centers around the queen. She often lays 2,000 eggs or more daily. In addition to the queen’s area, the section of the hive set aside as a nursery is also very important. Here the queen deposits the eggs, one to a cell. While she does this, “nurse” bees feed her bee milk from glands in their heads and keep her spotlessly clean.
The nurses also take care of the eggs until they hatch into grubs. Then they prepare “royal jelly” which is fed to the grubs for two days. After this the diet is changed to a mixture of pollen and honey, called “bee bread.” When a grub grows large enough to fill its cell, it weaves a silken web around itself, and a nurse makes a wax cover for the cell. Twenty-one days later a fully developed bee comes out.
What responsibilities these nurses have! Although they have no leader, each one seems to have its own duties and knows just what to do. Such wonderful instincts were given to honeybees when the Lord God first created them, and He never allows them to change.
The hive workers also take nectar and pollen from the outside workers, called “foragers.” They change it into honey, royal jelly or bee bread, as required, using special chemicals in their bodies. Other workers are used as guards at the entrance of the hive. In hot weather they all work to make air conditioning by continually fanning their wings to circulate the air. When it gets cold they group together and do activities that raise the temperature to just the right degree. Who do you think taught them to do these things?
Some of the eggs produce male bees, called “drones.” These drones do not work and are fed by the workers. Once a year the queen chooses one of them for a mate. The workers then get rid of the remaining drones, killing them or driving them out of the hive.
At the end of two or three weeks, nurses give up their inside work and become foragers. Their life span in this activity is only a month or so. During this time each bee collects enough nectar to make a teaspoon and a half of honey.
The beehive and its busy bees provide an amazing display of God’s creation. It shows us His power in preserving His works over the ages of time. The activities of the bees are also an example for all of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Saviour. We see how the bees work together and are never lazy. This is just what the Bible tells us to do: “Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works” (Hebrews 10:2424And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: (Hebrews 10:24)).
If you have accepted the Lord Jesus as your Saviour, how good it is to encourage and work with others in ways that are pleasing to Him.
NOVEMBER 17, 1996
ML-11/17/1996