Page 137 - Devotion Among Animals Revealing the Work of God

Cooperation and Solidarity Among Animals

them carefully, we see the intelligence inherent in their behavior is
too significant to be ignored. With their little brains that cannot be
seen by the naked eye, consisting of so few nerve cells, they perform
intelligent actions that wouldn't be expected of them. For millions of
years, they have been obeying their Creator God's orders in great
discipline and without fail. They have surrendered to Him and move
only by His will. All beings submit to God like the ants. As the
Qur'an says:

Is it other than the religion of God that you desire, when every-
thing in the heavens and earth, willingly or unwillingly, sub-
mits to Him and to Him you will be returned? (Qur'an, 3: 83)

Altruism in the Beehive
A similar display of harmony and solidarity can be observed in
hives. The devotion of worker bees is especially reminiscent of ants.
Both species work tirelessly until they die—for the sake of the queen
and for the larvae which are not theirs.
A beehive's population consists of the queen, the drone males
responsible for fertilizing the queen and the hundreds if not thou-
sands of worker bees. All work is performed by the workers: build-
ing the combs, cleaning and defending the hive, feeding the queen
and the drones, caring for the larvae, building and preparing the
brooding chambers according to the type of bee (worker, queen,
drone) that will develop inside, cleaning the hive and regulating its
humidity and temperature, feeding the larvae according their spe-
cific needs (nectar, honey and pollen), and collecting nectar, pollen,
water and resins.
We can list the phases of a worker bee's life and its devotional
behavior as follows:
1. A worker's lifespan is between four and six weeks. Once it
emerges from the pupal stage, it works for approximately three

weeks inside the hive. Its first job is to nurse the developing larvae. The

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