Page 107 - The Miracle of the Honeybee

Harun Yahya 105

soon as they land on it, and they immediately fly off again, and thus avoid
wasting time and energy.

Flower Fertilization and Bees

If you watch bees gathering food in a field full of various flowers,
something very interesting may catch your attention. A bee always moves
between flowers of one particular species. It pays no attention to other
kinds of flower as it flies from one to another.
Bees sometimes spend days visiting flowers of the same species, which
behavior benefits both them and the flowers. A bee that lands on a flower
for the first time and is unfamiliar with that flower’s structure must spend
a considerable time in order to find a single drop of nectar. But after land-
ing on the same kind of flower five or six times, the bee begins to gain
speed and competence, since it is able to attain its aim more easily.
This also benefits the flowers, because bees’ preference for a single
species permits rapid and efficient fertilization. Pollen from
one flower cannot fertilize other species, and
flowers are fertilized only by the bees
traveling between the mem-
bers of the same species.
Bees make use of scent in
order to find flowers of
the same species.
At this point, it will be
useful to touch on the sub-
ject of how fertilization takes
place. As we know, bees

Bees leave a scent on flowers
they have visited previously
and from which they’ve col-
lected nectar or pollen. This
way, subsequent bees do not
waste time and energy on
“harvested” flowers.