WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE BEE - HIVE?

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Quran,Translation and Commentary in Brief (Vol. 03)
4- THE COLOURS OF HONEY 3- THE PLACE IN WHICH HONEY IS MADE

(During day light hours in the summer, the BEE-HIVE is a scene of intense, yet orderly activities. A constant stream of workers pass in and out of the hive entrance. Those who enter, are laden with pollen (THE MASS OF MICROSPORES IN SEED PLANTS WHICH IS USUALLY IN THE FORM OF FINE YELLOW FLOUR) and nectar.

      Those leaving, are headed for flowers where they can pick up new loads. They sometimes travel to long distances from their hive in order to reach a particular kind of flower!

      Sometimes as far as 8 miles! The field workers are very hardy and active and tirelessly go about their task so much hard that soon their wings become tattered, and within a few months they become old and weak and worn out.

      Young workers serve as apprenticeship within the hive on indoor tasks, then they spend a few days near the hive entrance, getting their bearings, trying out their wings and defending the colony if necessary.

      Bees have no defensive soldiers as certain kinds of ants do have. In times of danger workers are drafted to fight intruders, and they usually sacrifice their lives by giving their single sting.

      The interior of the hive has little waste space. The bulk of the hive consists of hanging combs of six-sided cells in vertical rows in the two, placed back to back. Between the rows in the hanging comb, are narrow passage ways, barely large enough for a bee to squeeze through. The smallest cells are used as nurseries for worker LAVAE, and pollen storage. Larger cells function as nurseries for drones, and as bins for honey. Drones are the males of the honeybee. They have no sting and gather no honey. They live on the labors of others. The largest cells are royal suites in which the future queen will born.

      The workers who carry on the routine courses of the hive, each perform a special task. Some are housemaids, keeping the passage ways clean and free of litter. They also clean and polish each cell before an egg is placed in it. Others are nursemaids, taking care of the new born bees. Each of the helpless, blind, and limbless larvae, stretches its head with open mouth, waiting to be fed with pollen and honey, brought from the storage bin by the nursemaids! This never ending task is tremendous, for, the young bees have incredible appetites. Each larvae increases its weight 1500 times in six days! On the seventh day it stops eating and a cap is placed over the cell, and the larvae constructs a cocoon. (i.e. an envelope largely of silk) Then from the cocoon it will emerge as an adult bee! Other workers serve as carpenters and repairmen, building new combs and cells, as the population of the hive increases and new storage bins for mounting the influx of pollen and nectar.

      The queen bee does not rule the hive in the usual sense. She is carefully looked after however, since upon her depends the future existence of the community. The queen is actually an egg-laying machine, producing hundreds of thousands of eggs in her lifetime of three or four years. At maximum production, she can lay about 1800 eggs a day! There is usually only one adult queen in the hive at a time.

QUOTED FROM INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA

AND OTHER REFERENCESTRANSLATOR'S NOTE)

 

 

 

4- THE COLOURS OF HONEY 3- THE PLACE IN WHICH HONEY IS MADE
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