Page 51 - The Miracle of the Honeybee

Harun Yahya 49

Bees sweep up this pollen into their pollen baskets while in flight. As
they fly from one flower to another, they use the combs on their hind legs
to collect the pollen stuck to their legs and bodies. By rubbing its hind legs
against each other, a bee transfers the pollen gathered on each pollen comb
to the pollen press on the opposing leg. The accumulated pollen is then
forced into the pollen basket on the outer part of
the leg. The pollen is thus collected in one place,
and the bee continues doing this until, eventu-
ally, a large deposit of pollen forms, and the bas-
ket is filled. The bee occasionally strikes the
outer surface of the basket with its legs in order
to keep the pollen mass from falling off, thus set-
tling it safely, and heads off back to-
ward the hive. On arriving, the pollen
is placed in cells specially set aside
for it. 31
Many insects collect pollen from
flowers, but none achieve such pro-
ductive results as bees, because their
bodies are so ideally suited to pollen
1
gathering. Even so, it requires consid- 2
erable work, because after working
for a very long time, the bee carries
only two pollen packets back to the
hive. It takes an average of 20 pairs of
pollen packages to fill one honey-
comb cell. This means the bees must
work non-stop. 32
3
From flowers, bees collect two dis-
tinct substances that are each very Bees use the special systems created by God in
their hind legs to carry pollen.
different to one another, both in terms 1 – The bee scrapes the pollen collected on the
of their contents, their manner of col- combs, using its pollen rakes.
2 – The pollen is then pushed towards the
pollen basket by pumping the legs.
3 – Finally the pollen, moistened with a quan-
tity of regurgitated honey, is transported back
to the nest.