The queen and the male generally meet at high altitudes. The males are unable to approach the queen at lower than 4.5 meters (14.76 feet). During mating, part of the males' reproductive organs, including the sperm sac, rupture, and as soon as mating is completed, the male bee dies.69 Neither do the other males who fail to mate with the queen have much longer to live. Males live only in spring and early summer, after which they are killed by the workers. Once the time of the mating flight is over-and as the nectar levels in flowers start to decline in the heat of summer-the workers' behavior towards the males changes completely. Although the workers look after the males very carefully during the mating period, once that period is over, they start to tear off the drones' wings and attack them. If the males try to eat anything, the workers seize them in their powerful mouths and drag them by their antennae or legs to the hive entrance and throw them out.

Expelled in this way, the males soon die of hunger, since they lack the ability to find food for themselves. Therefore, they make determined efforts to re-enter the hive. Yet again they face the bites and poisoned stings of the workers. Although the drones are larger than the workers, they are unable to withstand this attack.70 Following the expulsion of the males from the hive, the females-both workers and the queen-spend a long time in the hive, until spring the following year, on their own.

The male bees, whose only job is to fertilize the queen, are expelled from the hive by the worker bees as soon as they complete that task.

Now, consider the situation of the male bees in the light of evolutionist claims. As just described, the males die shortly after their mating. This is one form of behavior that evolutionists cannot explain. The way that the drone risks death and embarks on the mating flight for the hive's benefit is behavior totally at odds with the concept of the "struggle for survival." If the mechanisms that evolution claims to exist in nature really did so, then the males should long since have undergone an evolutionary process that worked more in their favor. Yet for millions of years, male bees have been embarking on mating flights that will lead to their deaths.

In short, it is impossible to account for this example of self-sacrifice among bees by means of any claims from the theory of evolution. There can be only one explanation for a living thing ignoring its own safety and seeking to ensure the security and well-beings of other, unborn members of its own group: The order established in the beehive has been set out by a Creator possessed of a most superior intellect, one Who has given very different tasks to every bee within the hive. Bees living in any hive behave in accordance with those tasks entrusted to them, and sacrifice their lives if necessary for their sake. The important thing is continuity of the group order, and the necessary self-sacrifice for this occurs not by the will of the bees-who lack any conscious judgment-but through the will of Him Who rules them. In other words, the drones embark on their mating flight in obedience to the command of God Who created them, and ensure the continued existence of the hive at the cost of their own lives.

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• 70. Karl von Frisch, Aus Dem Leben Der Bienen, p.65.