Page 186 - Allah's Miracles in the Qur'an

Allah's Miracles in the Qur'an

Your Lord revealed to the bees: "Build dwellings in the mountains and
the trees, and also in the structures which men erect. Then eat from
every kind of fruit and travel the paths of your Lord, which have been
made easy for you to follow." From inside them comes a drink of vary-
ing colours, containing healing for humanity. There is certainly a sign
in that for people who reflect. (Qur'an, 16:68-69)
In the honey bee colonies where each of the many bees is assigned
a specific task, the only exception is the male honey bee. The males do

not contribute to the defence of the hive or its cleaning, to gathering
food, or making of the honeycomb and honey. The only function of the
male bees in the hive is to inseminate the queen bee. 110 Apart from
reproductive organs, the males possess almost none of the features pos-
sessed by the other bees and it is therefore impossible for them to do
anything but fertilise the queen.
The worker bees carry the entire load of the colony. Although they
are females like the queen, their ovaries have no maturity. This renders
them sterile. They have several duties: cleaning the hive, maintaining
the larvae and the young, feeding the queen bee and the males, pro-
ducing honey, constructing the honeycomb and repairing it, ventilating
the hive and safeguarding it, gathering supplies like nectar, pollen,

water and resin, and storing these in the hive.
In Arabic, there are two different usages of verbs. By means of the
usage, it is possible to determine whether the subject is a female or a
male. As a matter of fact, the verbs (italic words) used for the honey bee
in the verses are used in the format of the verb for females. Through
this, the Qur'an indicates that the honey bees that work in the making
of the honey are females. 111
We should not forget that it is impossible for this fact to have been

known about the honey bees in the time of the Prophet Muhammad

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