A honeybee visits between 50 and 100 flowers during one collection flight from the hive. In order to produce 1 pound of honey, 2 million flowers must be visited. A hive of bees must fly 55,000 miles to produce a pound of honey.
Honey Bees
Worker bees are all females.
In the Quran there is something strange about number 16 and the bees. Chapter 16 is called "The Bees". The only verse that mentions the bees is made up of 16 words. And those words are made up of 16 different letters.
It turned out that bees have something odd in their chromosomes. Female bees have 16 pairs of chromosomes while males have 16 chromosomes (Males have no father. Males are unfertilized eggs of the mother, just like Jesus).
Worker bees, those who gather pollen and make the honey, are actually all females. Male bees do not make honey. This was only known recently. However 1400 years ago the Quran refers to bees that generate the honey as females (the Arabic grammar is in the female mode):
[Quran 16.68-69] And your Lord (Allah) revealed to the bees: Build your hives in mountains, trees and in what they build. Then eat (for females) from every fruit and follow (for females) your Lord's enslaved paths, from its bellies (بُطُونِهَا) exits drink of different colors, in it healing for man. These are signs for those who contemplate.
- For the word "eat": "Kuli" is for females; "Kul" is for males. The Quran used "Kuli" (females).
- For the word "follow a path": "Usluki" is for females; "Usluk" is for males. The Quran used "Usluki" (females).
- For the word "its bellies": "butuniha" is for females; "butunihim" is for males. The Quran used "butuniha" (females).
How could an illiterate man who lived 1400 years ago have known that those honey making bees are females?
Butuniha بُطُونِهَا in Arabic means multiple stomachs of a single female. Today we know that a honey bee has an extra stomach dedicated for honey.
- For the word "its bellies": "butuniha" is for a single female. "butunihin" is for multiple females. The Quran used "butuniha" single female.
How could an illiterate man who lived 1400 years ago have known that a honey bee has an extra stomach for honey?
Bees build their hives from their own wax however scientists just discovered bees that build hives in wood and even in solid rock.
Carpenter bees drill their hives in wood.
Some bees can even drill in solid rock.
See: 'Unusual' Bee Species Drills Apartment-Style Nests Out of Rock
"And your Lord (Allah) revealed to the bees: Build your hives in mountains, trees and in what they build..." God ordered the bees to drill in mountains (solid rock), trees (wood) in addition to the known wax hives.
How could an illiterate man who lived 1400 years ago have known that bees can drill in solid rock?
Now let us ponder some verses of Quran that speaks about creation:
"And of his signs is the creation of the heavens and earth and what He has dispersed throughout them of creatures." (42:29, i.e. surah 42, ayah 29) "And a sign for them is the dead earth. We have brought it to life and brought forth from it grain, and from it they eat." (36:33)
Surat Al-An’am: “And there is no animal that walks upon the Earth nor a bird that flies with its two wings but they are like yourselves; We have not neglected anything in the book, and then to their Lord shall they be gathered.” [6:38]
Surat Luqman: “He created the heavens without pillars as you see them, and put mountains upon the Earth lest it might convulse with you, and H e spread it with animals of all kinds; and We sent down water from the clouds, then caused to grow therein (vegetation) of every noble kind.” [31:10]
Surat Al-Nahl: “He causes to grow for you thereby herbage, and the olives, and the palm trees, and the grapes, and of all the fruits; most surely there is a sign in this for a people who reflect.” [16:11]
14 – Surat Al-Nahl: “And he has made subservient for you the night and the day and the sun and the moon, and the stars are made subservient by his commandment; most surely there are signs in this for a people who ponder.” [16:12]