Look at the Insects: Lessons From God’s World Намуна

Get Busy As A Bee  

Did you know that the bee is the only social insect to be partially domesticated by humans? (in other words, the only insect that produces food eaten by man). 

The insect ‘Bee’ appears only a few times in the Bible, while honey is ubiquitous. To name a few: Israel was promised a land flowing with ‘milk and honey’. "Thy Word is sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb", said the Psalmist. John the Baptist lived on locusts and wild honey. 

Bees are social insects like ants. They play a very important role in the life cycle of plants by cross-pollinating. Did you know that a honey bee flaps its wings 230 times in just a second – that is 13,800 strokes in a minute? No wonder we call them busy bees. 

Talking about their busyness, here is another interesting fact about the honeybee. To produce one kilogram of honey, bees fly the equivalent of three times around the world in air miles. 

Allow me to contrast it with interesting numbers of our own species. 

While a queen bee lives between 2 – 4 years, an average human being lives for 25, 915 days, which is 71 years. 

Unlike a buzzing bee, humans speak roughly 15,000 words in a day. But did you know that bees have remarkable communication abilities? 

The foraging honey bees perform a ‘waggle dance’ – across the honeycomb that indicates the direction and distance of a rich source of pollen and nectar. This gets more intriguing as different species appear to have their own distinct "dialects" of waggle dance, and Asiatic and European honey bees were even found to translate each other’s dialects. 

Well, comparing sleep schedules, an average human spends about 26 years sleeping in his or her lifetime. Surprisingly, we also spend 7 years trying to get to sleep! Well, busy bees are not always busy and are known to sleep for 5 to 8 hours a day. It looks like bees have a good work-life balance. Biologists are convinced of basic dreaming in honeybees which help in their memory retention. 

Looking at the intricate nature of the honey bee and its behavior, some experts think honeybees have unique personalities. 

While bees continue to intrigue scientists and others, the Bible underscores that humans are special creatures. God for sure has made each of us distinct.  Remember the words of Jesus: ‘…you are worth more than many sparrows’.  

Psalm 139 reads: 

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
    you formed me in my mother’s womb.
… You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
    how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
    all the stages of my life were spread out before you,

Friend, you and I are called to be God’s representatives, yet every individual is distinguished from the others. Physically, our thumbprints are exclusive. Could you believe that this space on our thumbs, smaller than a square inch is different for every one of us? So much differentiation - among about 7.25 billion people. 

Not only is our thumbprint unique, so is our tongue print. In short, what you say (your unique tongue print) and what you do (unique thumb-print) distinguishes your purpose and call in life. Your word and your work matter for eternity. 

The Psalmist ends that prayer in Psalm 139 this way: 

“Investigate my life, O God,
    find out everything about me;
Cross-examine and test me,
    get a clear picture of what I’m about;
See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong—
    then guide me on the road to eternal life”.

You and I are called to be busy like a bee – each of us fulfilling our unique tasks, sharing our personal stories and songs of joy and deliverance. That would be authentic work done. 

May God bless us and make us a blessing!