Page 70 - The Miracle in the Ant

inside the nest. They are equipped to fend off any eviction attempts and
eventually they stay on in the nest, because the velvet ants have strong
arms and a shield which allow them to go inside even bee hives. Their
outer shells are exceptionally thick and hard. Zoologists claim that they
have difficulty in piercing the chest of the velvet ant with a steel pin. 39
Once inside, the velvet queen ant, which has all kinds of equipment
with which to settle in the bee hives, starts feeding on the honey stock.
Also, it leaves its eggs in the pupa cells of the bees or their cocoons. The
ant larvae that hatch, feed on host pupae and later on they become pu-
pae also. Bees leave the nest at the end of summer. Velvet ants spend
the winter in this nest as pupae. According to one record, in a bee nest,
there have been found 76 velvet ants and only two bees. 40 This exam-
ple shows how effective and successful the female velvet ant is in deal-
ing with the female bee. The queen velvet ant, using subtle tactics, cap-
tures the nest from within and gains control of the nest herself.
What can be said here is that the velvet ant knows the bees very well
and, moreover, knows very well how to deceive them, too. Then can it
be anybody other than the Creator of the bee Who inspires her with the
physical characteristics of the bee, its life style and nest structure? The
only logical explanation is the acceptance of the existence of a sole
Creator Who has created ants, bees and, in fact, all living beings.

Fire Ants
Fire ants are red insects of diminutive size. Yet they can achieve great
things in spite of their smallness. The queens of these ants, which have
20 varieties in America alone, may produce as many as 5,000 eggs a day.
While many ant species colonies have a few hundred workers, the
colonies of this species have about half a million workers. A single mat-
ed fire ant queen can produce a colony of 240,000 workers. 41
Fire ant workers very aggressively attack their prey with poisonous
needles. It has been recorded that young fire ants have injured or even
killed reptiles or baby deer. Also these aggressive ants may cause pow-
er failures by tearing up electricity cables. For a while they invaded
South America and caused frightening damage. The journals and maga-
zines of that year tell us that these ants have chewed through electrical
cables and caused power cuts; they have caused damage to crops worth

Kar›nca Mucizesi
70 THE MIRACLE IN THE ANT