The Complexity of Honeybees by Dr. Johnny O. Trail, LMFT
When one studies the complexity of nature, systems, and organisms, he is left with the conclusion that there is intelligence in design. Considering intelligent design, all one has to do is stop and look around them. Everything in the created universe shows God’s invisible attributes and the intricacy of His creation. For instance, let us consider the honeybee, one small facet of God’s design. If you stop and watch these fascinating creatures, you can easily ask “How did honeybees and hives become so complex in our natural universe?”
The honeybee is a wonderful example of intricacy that cannot truly be explained by evolutionary theory. All hives are composed of a queen, drone, or worker bee. The queen lays eggs and produces pheromones that direct the work of the hive. The drone’s only purpose is to mate with the queen and then die in the process. The workers are best described as follows,
It is the thousands of worker bees who keep the colony going. From the day they are born they slave away without complaining; cleaning and guarding the hive, feeding the developing bee brood (babies), building the honeycomb, and collecting nectar to process into honey stores for the long winter when there are no flowers. The workers keep the hive cool in summer and warm in winter. And they communicate very efficiently too – they can tell their sisters where to find the best flowers, and the amount and quality of the nectar they will find there. They can tell if the queen is safe and if that new bee trying to creep in is a stranger from another hive coming to steal their precious honey.
This is, at best, a simple snapshot of what it takes for a colony to survive the environmental challenges it faces. A more complicated explanation of these insects is deserved to grasp the marvel of nature’s pollinators. Suffice it to say, this only begins to disturb the hive regarding the intricate nature of these creatures.
Some have attempted to explain that honeybees evolved from ancient wasps but are left with many questions that they cannot honestly answer. One evolutionary scientist admits,
“We found that some of the earliest-originating bees did not partake in the diversification upswing,” Murray said. “Our findings indicate that pollen-feeding was an important evolutionary switch but does not fully explain the diversity we see today. We postulate that other complementary innovations, such as a generalist host-plant diet, influenced the tremendous diversification of the major bee lineages.”
Did you notice that the “evolutionary switch” does not explain the complexity of the honeybee? As a matter of fact, an admission is made that some bees did not “partake in the diversification upswing.” There is no discernable jump from one species to another, but an admitted change based upon the environment. That is, some varieties of bees did not evolve as postulated by scientists!
When one considers these facts about honeybees, it demonstrates that evolutionary models of their change are inaccurate. For one thing, the queen bee lays thousands of eggs every day that hatch in eighteen to twenty-four days. With this many bees being produced over ten-thousand years (A young earth model), it becomes evident that they were readily equipped by the Creator to adapt to every environmental situation.
Bees live on every continent and some adaptation to diverse environments is expected. God designed them with diversity (adaptation to the environment) so that they might pollinate crops and trees that produce food. These small creatures must be able to interact with the world’s ecosystem to supply all creatures with nourishment. This fact also underscores intelligent design.
The existence of honeybees and their varieties defeat the idea of the earth being millions of years old. If the earth is as old as evolutionary scientists say it must be, one would expect even more multiplicity than is evidenced by the bees seen in the natural universe. One source says,
Bees are rapidly reproducing insects. Given 100 million years to reproduce billions of offspring, the sheer number of genetic muta-tions should have altered bee morphology to a considerable, even overwhelming, degree—even though such an accumulated change would be degenerative overall (ignoring the likelihood of extinction due to such accumulating mutational ‘load’). However, the fact that bee morphology has not changed in any major way strongly suggests that bees have not existed for 100 million years. There simply hasn’t been enough time, enough mutations, or enough generations to effect substantial anatomical change.
Honeybees and other social insects have confounded scientists for many years. How does one truly explain the interaction and complex nature of insect interaction in a hive setting? That is, how do individual insects, complex within themselves, work in such a manner as to maintain a hive that thrives even in the harshest of conditions? Is it better explained by ignorant chance or by intelligent design? Why, intelligent design of course! The answer is self-evident if one logically studies the topic. Romans 1:20 says, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.” How could anyone look at the complexity and intricacies of a honeybee and say, “There is no God!”
*Article inspired by apiarist, Robert Johnson. Robert is a member at the Hillcrest congregation and a great brother in Christ.
*All sources used are available upon request.
