Page 49 - The Miracle of the Honeybee

Harun Yahya 47

and the workers leave the hive to begin
their new and dangerous jobs. It is haz-
ardous to fly around outside among the
flowers because all the bees’ natural en-
emies, such as spiders and dragonflies,
live there. In addition, this task is a
rather tiring one, since the bees must
constantly fly back and forth between
the hive and the flowers, their source of
food. Bees whose flight muscles wear
out die soon afterwards.
But meanwhile, their bodies are Foraging bees have some dangerous ene-
equipped with specially created systems mies, such as the mantis (above), dragonfly
and spider.
to collect nectar and pollen. They swal-
low nectar to fill their internal honey sacs. They do not swallow pollen as
they do nectar, but carry it back to the hive in small pouches affixed to the
sides of their hind legs.

Bees’ Pollen Baskets
On the hind legs of bees are found slight concavities, just like spoons,
surrounded by a fringe of hairs. This area is known as the “pollen basket,”
and serves to carry the pollen. The underside of the bees’ abdomen is com-
pletely covered in soft hairs. The pollen sticks to these when the worker
bee encounters a flower, and the hairs on its legs act rather like a comb,
sweeping up the pollen and helping accumulate it in the pollen basket. 30
When a bee reaches the age for food gathering, it fills its crop with a
small amount of honey to give it enough energy before flying off. In addi-
tion, it uses this honey to place in its baskets the pollen it collects. When
the pollen-gathering bee lands on a flower’s anther, it uses its mouth and
forelegs to scrape up the pollen it finds there and moistens it with the re-
gurgitated honey in order to make it sticky. As the bee does so, some of the
pollen sticks to its body hairs, so that bees sometimes appear as if they
were covered in flour.

Adnan Oktar