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 food gathering. Their only function is to fertilize the queen.66 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 except 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 hairs on their abdomens-which males lack.
- Female bees have wax glands; males do not.
- Female bees construct combs, whereas males are unable to.
- Females can carry out the "bee dance," but males cannot.
- Unlike males, females are able to collect food.
- Female bees nurse the young, unlike the males.
In winter, only female bees are to be found in the hive, because the males are either expelled from the hive or killed before winter's arrival. As spring approaches, however, the worker bees begin to build cells for male eggs. The queen then lays in these cells eggs which will hatch into drones. The males emerge from these cells in early May.67
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The population of the hive falls slightly in winter, but starts to rise again before spring since new workers are being raised. This population rise continues until swarming. (James and Carol Gould, The Honey Bee, p. 27.) |
These months are generally when the old queen leaves the hive to establish a new colony and when new queens are raised in the hive. During this period, the new queen needs to engage in mating flights in order to be able to lay eggs, which is one of the reasons why the workers raise male bees.
Despite the male bees' lack of abilities, the workers take great care of them until they mate with the queen. Five or six workers need to work non-stop to feed just one of the 400 to 500 male bees in the hive. In other words, some 2,000 to 3,000 worker bees do nothing else than care for the drones for a specific period of time.
No more than 10 males are necessary for the queen to mate. Nevertheless, a bee community raises hundreds of drones. Despite all the work that must be done in the hive, the workers spend a large part of their time taking care of the males. This task is most important because the queen has to find males when she departs on her mating flight. Bearing in mind the fact that bees have enemies such as dragonflies, and that the drones have no sting or venom to defend themselves with, one can more clearly see the importance of their being raised in large numbers.
Despite their serving no other purpose at all, the way that the drones receive enormous care from the workers for a specific period is an important precaution, taken for the security of the entire hive. There is of course a special purpose behind this-ensuring the continuity of the hive by 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 assemble together to work out this strategy? Or did they, by chance, discover 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 consciousness 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.
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This article is based on the works of Harunyahya www.harunyahya.com