Page 78 - The Miracle of the Honeybee

76 THE MIRACLE OF THE HONEYBEE

In such an emergency, the workers start to tear down the walls of cells
around those of the larvae being raised as queens. Their aim is to widen
the regular cells and enlarge them into royal cells. Several worker cells are
torn down for any single royal cell. The worker larvae inside them die, of
course. 65
Yet this loss is insignificant for the hive. The workers do this in order to
ensure the survival of their colony as a whole. They prefer the survival of
a few candidate queens to that of several workers. Following the prepara-
tion of the queen cells in this manner, the new potential queens are fed
with royal jelly.
Shortly afterwards, the first of the specially reared queens emerges
from her cell and sets about eliminating her rivals.
From the moment she emerges from the cell until leaving the hive, the
queen is fully aware of what she needs to do. There is only one possible ex-
planation for her conscious and goal-oriented behavior and the way in
which she’s fully equipped with everything she needs to achieve that end.
Bees possess a consciousness inspired in them by God, and engage in this
behavior by His will.

Male Bees
The males, or drones, are the only exception in bee colonies, where
every other individual has a number of responsibilities. The male bees
make no contribution to the defense of the hive, nor to cleaning, nor to
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food gathering. Their only function is to fertilize the queen. Since the
drones possess almost none of the features found in other bees, except for
their reproductive organs, they are not able to serve any other purpose ex-
cept fertilizing the queen.
There are very distinctive differences between male and female bees.
Some of these may be listed as follows:
- Female bees have pollen baskets, whereas males do not.
- Females have stings, which are absent in males.
- Females have combs which help to collect pollen on their feet and