We have already mentioned that the queen can determine the gender of the other bees yet unborn. She does this by opening and closing the mouth of the spermatheca in which the sperm are stored, and which is connected by a small duct to the oviduct-the tube through which the eggs pass from the ovary. When the queen wishes to lay a female egg, she releases a minute amount of sperm from the spermatheca into the duct, to fertilize the egg. The egg will be fertilized only if she releases sperm. If no sperm emerges from the spermatheca, the egg will remain unfertilized. As a result of this process, entirely under the queen's control, female bees emerge from the fertilized eggs and male bees, or drones, from the unfertilized ones.58

When scientists studied the question of how the queen bee can possess such a system and the criteria by which she determines gender, they arrived at very surprising results. Actually it's the worker bees who determine the gender of the egg, despite the queen's supervision of the process. That is because the queen lays an egg according to the kind of cell the workers have prepared for it. If the cell in which the queen is to lay an egg is a standard-size 5.2-millimeter (0.2-inch) female cell, then the queen performs fertilization and deposits in it an egg that will eventually hatch into a female bee. But if the queen comes across a larger 1-millimeter (0.03-inch) cell, then she lays an unfertilized egg in it. To put it another way, the queen lays as many drone eggs as the workers have prepared male bee cells for.59

This drawing shows the reproductive system and sting of a mated queen. The queen bee’s reproductive organs consist of two ovaries that produce her eggs, and a small receptacle known as the spermatheca, where the sperm from the drones which have mated with queen during her mating flight are stored.

The workers also determine the number of cells. On the basis of the needs of the hive, they decide how many worker and how many drone cells should be constructed, and how much space should be reserved for honey or pollen.60

If, as we have seen, the workers decide on the number of cells in light of the needs of the hive, prepare the dimensions of those cells according to that number, and thus direct the queen's actions accordingly, a number of questions spring to mind: Is it possible for an insect to make minute calculations and decide on the cell size on its own? Or is it possible for any one insect to direct the actions of another? Of course not! Bees have very small brains, and entirely lack such attributes as thought, judgment or calculation. That being the case, it appears that there is another Power which controls the bees' behavior. The explanation for the worker bees' direction of the queen is both creatures' acting under the inspiration of God, Who teaches both groups of insects how to behave.

Let us now stop for a moment and consider that all the details we have examined so far demonstrate exceedingly conscious behavior, a flawless social order in the lives of bees, and the existence of features and structures fully compatible to carry out that order.

Everything in the heavens and the earth glorifies God. He is the Almighty, the All-Wise. (Surat al-Hadid: 1)

Quite obviously, no bee can identify the millimetric variations in the dimensions of the cells itself, nor decide accordingly on the gender of the egg. We therefore need to ask the following: Who determines the number of workers and males needed in the hive, and when a new queen will be needed? Do the intelligence and consciousness of the bees who build the combs establish this order? Or consider the queen, an insect only a few centimeters long and with a brain consisting of very basic nerve connections. With its own limited intelligence, how can such a creature possibly understand the purpose behind the comb cells constructed and lay the appropriate egg in each one with no confusion ever arising?

What emerges as a result of this is the existence of a flawless supervision of bees. Yet that control is not exerted by the queen bee or a few other bees over tens of thousands of workers. It is actually the inspiration of God. Like all other species, bees behave according to the inspiration of God and maintain the flawless order we have been considering so far. God has created their bodily systems to be ideally suited to the lives they are to lead. He is the Creator of all:

Is He Who creates like him who does not create? So will you not pay heed? (Surat an-Nahl: 17)

[God is] the Originator of the heavens and Earth. When He decides on something, He just says to it, "Be!" and it is. (Surat al-Baqara: 117)

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• 58. Karl von Frisch, Arilarin Hayati (The Life of Bees), pp.55-56.
• 59. Karl von Frisch, Aus Dem Leben Der Bienen, p.57.
• 60. Moddy Science Classics, Moody Video, City of the Bees, Chicago, USA,1998.

This article is based on the works of Harunyahya www.harunyahya.com