Page 80 - The Miracle of the Honeybee

78 THE MIRACLE OF THE HONEYBEE

50
Swarming period
40

Hive population (x 1000) 20 The population of the hive
30
falls slightly in winter, but
starts to rise again before
spring since new workers
are being raised. This pop-
ulation rise continues until
10
swarming. (James and
Carol Gould, The Honey
0 Bee, p. 27.)
Winter Spring Summer Autumn

avoiding any risk to the mating of the queen. The question therefore
arises: How do the bees take such an important decision? Did they all as-
semble together to work out this strategy? Or did they, by chance, dis-
cover that it was a good strategy and somehow understand that it was
necessary and decide to continue with it?
Bees cannot of course do any of this and make such decisions of their
own accord. They have no decision-making mechanisms, nor the con-
sciousness with which to outline a strategy and then put it into action.
Like all other living things on Earth, they are fully submitted to God.
Were the number of male bees to be limited, then a number of problems
might arise during the fertilization process. For example, some of them
might fail to find the queen, or else fall prey to their many predators. That
might lead to the queen’s spermatheca not being filled sufficiently, and
thus to the eventual production of an insufficient number of bees in the
hive. Yet no such thing ever actually happens. There are sufficient males in
every hive. The workers conform to God’s inspiration and look after the
drones, who wander around the hive until the end of the mating period
and do no work.