As stated earlier, shortly after watching the dancing bee, other workers leave the hive and head off for the target. However, bees also face an important problem: The angle that the dancer gave to her sisters is based on the Sun. Yet the Sun is not fixed in the sky, but changes position by 1 degree every 4 minutes. If a bee followed the original line, it would never be able to locate its target, due to the shift in the Sun's position. Every 4 minutes will bring a margin of error of 1 degree, which will reach uncorrectable dimensions over a long journey.

This presents no problem over short distances, say over 200 meters (650 feet). A bee flies at an average of 13 kilometers (8 miles) an hour, traveling 216 meters, or 708 feet a minute.82

But what if the target is more than 4 minutes away?

As already said, bees can collect food from an area 10-kilometers (6.2 miles) wide. They must fly for about 45 minutes to cover 10 kilometers.83 During that time, however, the Sun will move some 11 degrees. If the bee follows the direction given by the original dancing bee, then it will be deflected from the food source as the Sun changes position. In returning to the hive, a bee that has traveled a distance of 10 kilometers bears in mind the position of the food source in relation to that of the Sun. Moreover, since this bee is carrying food, it must travel more slowly, at 9 kilometers/hour (5.6 miles/hour).84 That means that during the bee's return, the Sun will have moved 16.5 degrees. Therefore, the bee's directions relative to the Sun may possibly be wrong. Add the 16.5-degree discrepancy of the bee performing the dance to the 11-degree margin of error of the bee setting out, and the bee may end up 27.5 degrees away from the food source.

Moreover, if the bee fails to find any food source after traveling that distance, she will not have the strength to get back, because bees only take as much honey as they will use for that distance, in order to return with more food from their destination. When that honey is used up, their strength also evaporates. If they're unable to reach nectar, they'll be unable to return from a lack of energy.

Yet in reality, this never happens. For millions of years now, bees have been understanding the directions given to them by their sisters-despite the movement of the Sun and the changing angles. Bees experience no difficulties in finding sources of food, indicating that they make no mistakes in calculating the angle with respect to the Sun. To express this in mathematical terms, the bees calculate that the Sun moves 1 degree every 4 minutes. As a result, they're able to keep the food source's exact location in mind and to "describe" it to other bees. Other bees calculate the angle according to the changed position of the Sun, understand those directions given, and locate the food source in question.

HOW BEES CALCULATE DISTANCE Various experiments have been carried out regarding how bees, when they set off to look for food, take a small quantity of it with them. In one experiment, bees who found a bowl containing sugar water at a specific distance returned to the hive (1) and described its location. The first group of bees who set out brought food back from the source. Then the scientists conducting the experiment placed the bowl slightly farther away. The second group to arrive were unable to find food at the location indicated, and were unable to return from a lack of energy (2). They were able to find the strength to set out only by reinforcement with sugar water and honey (3-4). The reason why bees take only enough food to permit them to reach the source is so that they can carry more pollen and nectar on their return. Moody Science Classic, City of the Bees, Moody Video: A Ministry of Moody Bible Institute, 820 N. LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60610-3284.

A careful re-reading of the preceding paragraph will show the extraordinary nature of these directions given by bees. It will be useful to consider those words not with their usual familiarity, but one by one, imagining what is being described, and using our reason, logic and conscience. Very few people are even aware of exactly how much the position of the Sun changes in how many minutes. Yet bees, as if they were conscious of all this, perform a precisely accurate mathematical calculation, accurate to the minute and even to the second. Is it at all possible for a bee to perform, of its own volition, such a calculation, which even a human who's not an expert on the subject could not manage? Of course not! That ability has been given to bees by God. To claim otherwise would violate all the rules of reason and logic. Someone who maintains that bees learned such a calculation by themselves during some alleged "process of evolution" must also claim that in hundreds of years' time, again through that same process, bees will be able to solve equations better than even the best-skilled academics. No one could possibly make such a claim, and we would have grave doubts about the sanity of anyone who did.

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• 82. Ali Demirsoy, Yasamin Temel Kurallari, Omurgasizlar/Bocekler (The Basic Rules of Life, Invertebrates/Insects), Entomology Vol. II / Part II, p.66.
• 83. Mark L. Winston, The Biology of the Honey Bee, p.171.
• 84. Ali Demirsoy, Yasamin Temel Kurallari, Omurgasizlar/Bocekler (The Basic Rules of Life, Invertebrates/Insects), Entomology Vol. II / Part II, p.66.