Joel Hendon

God’s Special Gift To The Amazing Japanese Honeybee

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Posted: Sunday, March 18, 2012

by Joel Hendon
http://hebronics.org/index.html

I was raised amid hives of honeybees, wild flying wasps, yellow jackets, hornets and bumble bees. They will all sting you. I have been the victim of all of the above. All are highly despised with the exception of the honeybees which furnish us with delicious honey. Also, the honeybee is less aggressive (with a few exceptions) and their sting is not as potent or painful.

In the wild, honeybees primarily lodge in hollow trees where they have been known to produce many gallons of honey, and in days gone by, men once “robbed” those trees of their honey and in some cases, cut the tree down to salvage it. But most of the honey you see has been raised by farmers and/or commercial apiaries.

The yellowjackets and hornets are nuisance insects for humans and can be quite dangerous. They can also hamper the construction of honeybee combs and honey, although they usually raid honeybee hives individually or very few at one time and honeybees are so numerous they can usually destroy the predator or at least discourage his foraging of their hives.

But in Asia there is the Asian giant hornet. Much larger than any other hornet, growing to two inches long or more. They are too large and their hide is too tough for the normal honeybee and they have been known to destroy colonies of ordinary honeybees. This hornet is called the “sparrow” hornet in some areas since it is as large as some tiny birds. But God has blessed the Japanese honeybees with a strange attribute for defense against this bully.

Only the Japanese honeybees have this capability and it is somewhat baffling to scientists. Read this explanation:

Although a handful of Asian giant hornets can easily defeat the defenses of many individual honey bees, whose small stings cannot inflict much damage against such a large predator, the Japanese honey bee (Apis cerana japonica) possesses a collective defense against them.

When a hornet scout locates and approaches a Japanese honey bee hive it will emit specific pheromonal hunting signals. When the honey bees detect these pheromones, a hundred or so will gather near the entrance of the nest and set up a trap, keeping it open apparently to draw the hornet further into the hive or allow it to enter on its own. As the hornet enters the nest, a large mob of about five hundred honey bees surrounds it, completely covering it and preventing it from moving, and the bees begin to quickly vibrate their flight muscles. This has the effect of raising the temperature of the honey bee mass to 46 °C (115 °F). In addition, the mob of honey bees raises the level of carbon dioxide (CO2) around the hornet. At that concentration of CO2, the honey bees can tolerate up to 50 °C (122 °F), but the hornet cannot survive the combination of a temperature of 46 °C (115 °F) and high carbon dioxide level, so it dies. Often several bees die along with the intruder, but the death of the hornet scout prevents it from summoning reinforcements which would wipe out the colony. (Wikipedia-Asian giant hornet) (Other sources say that the temperature sometime reaches 117 degrees)

Scientists have found that after a couple of minutes into the swarming onto hornet, that a genetic boost kicks in\ on the brain of these honeybees, but they are unsure what it does. They assume that it indicates to them, the level of which they can go before damaging themselves or causing their own death occurs.

This is only one other feature of abilities instilled in various creatures of God, which goes beyond the imagination of humans. Omnipotent and omniscient is he…indeed.
Author Biography: Joel Hendon was born near Gadsden Alabama. He attended public schools in Cherokee County, Alabama and after serving a tour of duty in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, attended Jacksonville State University, majoring in Business Administration. He became a Christian in 1948, and although he followed secular work as a career and retired from Allied Signal Aerospace, he is an avid student of the Holy Bible and related works as well as biblical history. He has an extensive website of conservative religious and political articles plus much more. Check it out. http://hebronics.org/index.html

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