Before the foraging bees return to the hive, they deposit a special scent on their food source. Every worker has a scent gland in its body, which it can use at will. This gland, which is located at the rear of the bee, under normal circumstances is invisible from the outside. The bee can expose this gland when it so chooses, and spreads the gland's scent over the flower it lands on and its surroundings. This scent resembles the aroma of the Melissa plant and can easily be perceived by human beings. Bees are especially sensitive to the odor of bees from their own hives, and can detect it even from considerable distances.88

Thanks to the way in which bees mark flowers, other bees can recognize that most of the nectar has been drawn from a particular flower as soon as they land on it, and they immediately fly off again, and thus avoid wasting time and energy.

Flower Fertilization and Bees

Bees leave a scent on flowers they have visited previously and from which they’ve collected nectar or pollen. This way, subsequent bees do not waste time and energy on “harvested” flowers.

If you watch bees gathering food in a field full of various flowers, something very interesting may catch your attention. A bee always moves between flowers of one particular species. It pays no attention to other kinds of flower as it flies from one to another.

Bees sometimes spend days visiting flowers of the same species, which behavior benefits both them and the flowers. A bee that lands on a flower for the first time and is unfamiliar with that flower's structure must spend a considerable time in order to find a single drop of nectar. But after landing on the same kind of flower five or six times, the bee begins to gain speed and competence, since it is able to attain its aim more easily.

This also benefits the flowers, because bees' preference for a single species permits rapid and efficient fertilization. Pollen from one flower cannot fertilize other species, and flowers are fertilized only by the bees traveling between the members of the same species. Bees make use of scent in order to find flowers of the same species.

At this point, it will be useful to touch on the subject of how fertilization takes place. As we know, bees visit flowers to collect both pollen and nectar, but in gathering pollen, they perform a vital function for the flowers: fertilization. In order to produce seeds, a flower's female reproductive organ has to unite with male gametes, enclosed in pollen grains. In other words, a quantity of pollen must unite with the stigma-the sticky tip of the female organ. Flowers are generally unable to transport pollen in their male stamens onto their own stigmas. The requisite union takes place thanks to insects, thus forming the seeds that will form new plants and new flowers.89

BOMBUS BEES Bombus bees play a major role in plant fertilization. As can be seen at the side, the tiny hairs on the body of the Bombus, larger than other bees, are covered in microscopic hooks. These make it easy for the bee to collect individual pollen grains as it visits flowers. The Bombus then stores the pollen by emptying it into the pollen baskets. David Attenborough, The Trials of Life, p. 58.

As we have seen, there is a very close connection between flowers and bees. Both have been created by God to complement one another. For example, flowers, which need to be fertilized by insects, produce nectar which will attract insects to them, and it is this which also attracts bees. Furthermore, flowers also attract insects by means of their scents or bright colors.

This relationship between bees and flowers is also exceedingly important for us humans, because beekeeping is of great importance to agriculture. A great many fruit trees and crops are fertilized by bees to a large extent. For that reason, some experts regard bees' contribution in this regard as more important than their production of honey. In the light of this, the verses in Surat an-Nahl about honeybees immediately come to mind, in which God reveals the way in which bees eat from all fruits:

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 varying colors, containing healing for humanity. There is certainly a sign in that for people who reflect. (Surat an-Nahl: 68-69)

Other insects as well as bees fertilize flowers. Yet because of their large numbers, industriousness and the suitability of their bodies, bees can carry relatively greater amounts of pollen than other insects. A large part of agriculture depends on the pollination carried out by bees; indeed, some 80% of insect pollination is the work of bees. Did that pollination fail to take place, there would be a major reduction in the amount of fruit and vegetables produced.

There is no creature on the Earth which is not dependent upon God for its provision. He knows where it lives and where it dies. They are all in a Clear Book. (Surah Hud: 6)

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• 88. Karl von Frisch, Arilarin Hayati (The Life of Bees), p.143
• 89. Ibid., pp.39-41

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