Page 119 - The Miracle of the Honeybee

Harun Yahya 117

30
The pictures to the side
0
show a swarm regulating
the temperature of the
mass. Under cooler con-
ditions, the workers
clump together tightly
and provide less internal
ventilation, in order to
5 0
conserve heat (far left).
Under warmer condi-
35 0
tions, they spread out in
30 0 order to cool down the
25 0 center of the clump.
19 0

Scout Bees in Action

While one part of the colony waits in a mass, the scout bees are very ac-
tive. Indeed, they have begun their preparations long before. A few days
before leaving the hive, these scouts have spread out in search of new set-
tlement sites. On occasion they fly for several kilometers. 98
The scouts carefully examine the fissures and tree trunks in which they
might establish a new hive. The large number of scouts seek possible new
locations for the colony and literally carry out settlement planning, make
various calculations to arrive at a common decision of the suitability of the
new hive site. Then they again act together, returning to the colony and
leading it to the new site.
If a scout finds a suitable hole or cavity, she examines it systematically,
sometimes for hours on end. She checks the external appearance by flying
around it. She also generally enters the hole and walks around in it, first
moving to the entrance, and then walking around the inside, examining
the inner surfaces. Thomas Seeley of Yale University, who made a special
study of this, calculated that a single bee walks more than 50 meters (164
feet). In his experiment, using artificial cylindrical hives capable of revolv-
ing around their own axes, Seeley revealed how far bees had to walk to ex-
amine the interior of the hive, and that in this way, they calculated the
volumes of dimly illuminated cavities. 99

Adnan Oktar