When viewed from either the standpoint of their physical makeup or their social instincts, bees are a masterly creation!

            A colony of bees, called a swarm, may number from 10,000 to 60,000 or more individual bees.  Bees have a most amazing "economy" in their hives.  The work is divided among different groups — and each group instinctively knows what it must do.  There are three kinds of bees in each colony.  The queen, the drones (males) and the workers (undeveloped females).  The queen does not rule the colony: her function is to lay the eggs from which the new bees develop.  And that is quite a job, since from 1,000 to 1,500 bees emerge daily, in the summer season, to replace the deaths and enlarge the colony.

            One section of the hive is set apart for the nursery and it is here that the queen in her daily rounds lays the tiny eggs in specially prepared cells.  The eggs hatch in three days into grubs (small worm-like creatures also called maggots or larvae).  They are fed in the cell until they grow to the point where they fill the cell.  They are then sealed in; they pupate, and soon a new bee emerges.  We will have more to say about this interesting cycle later.

            The worker bees literally "work themselves to death."  In a colony of 50,000 bees there are about 30,000 workers.  These bees average 10 trips a day in the summer and visit a total of 300,000 flowers.  Their wings fray out from much flying — and they usually die in about two months.  Those that emerge in the fall live longer, as a rule.

The Intricate Anatomy of Bees, Showing "Design" for a Purpose

            The whole anatomy of bees is so intricate, involved and wonderful, naturalists and biologists            could write volumes on the subject.  Our present purpose is to call attention to a few of the "specialized" organs that grace the body of a bee — organs and features that are obviously THERE FOR A PURPOSE, so constructed as to reveal special creative design.

            The honeybee has sharp tips on its claws, to enable it to walk along on any rough surface; between its claws it has a little pad or cushion called the pulvillus that enables it to walk on smooth, slippery surfaces, such as glass.

Its Pollen-collecting Legs 

            Not only does a bee serve a most needed function in cross-pollination, but also the pollen it gathers is part of its food.  Its body and legs are clearly designed for that purpose.  Pollen clings to the hairs on its legs and body, and is transferred to pollen "baskets" on its hind legs.  These "baskets" are made by a peculiar arrangement of hairs surrounding a depression on the outer surface of the legs.

            On the middle pair of legs at the knee is a short, projecting spur, used to pack pollen in the pollen baskets.  On the inner part of the hind leg are a series of side combs used to scrape together the pollen that has stuck to the hairy body of the bee; with these side combs the bee then transfers the pollen to its pollen baskets.  She then packs down the pollen in the baskets with the spurs on her middle legs.  Long hairs on the front pair of legs remove pollen from the area of the bee's mouth and head.  The middle pair of legs are used to scrape the pollen off the thorax and front legs; the stiff hairs of the third set (hind) legs comb the abdomen and also the accumulated pollen on the second pair of legs — and then she deftly puts the accumulation into the pollen baskets on the hinds legs!  The whole procedure is so efficient and practical, one can not help but conclude that Someone must have planned it that way!  Finally — when the bee reaches the hive, it uses a spur at the tip of each front leg to push the pollen out of the pollen baskets and into the cells of the comb of the hive. *

            * There is a more detailed and technical description of the marvelous legs of the honeybee in the section to come on "Animals Without Backbones."

            "The walking legs of the honey bee are modified for collecting food.  Each is highly specialized and quite different from the others, so that, TOGETHER, they constitute a complete set of tools FOR COLLECTING AND MANIPULATING THE POLLEN upon  which the bees feed."  (Animals Without Backbones").

The Antennae 

            The two rodlike projections that extend in front of the bee move constantly.  they are not only "feelers" but also "smellers" — the "nose" of the bee.  On the tops of these antennae are thousands of tiny "sense plates!"

            The Creator has provided bees with an ingenius means to keep these sensitive sense plates at the ends of their delicate antennae clean and functioning.  When the bee inserts her head into nectar-holding flowers, the antennae may become coated and clogged with bee glue or other foreign substances.  On the bee's front legs is a moveable piece of tough tissue, which can be raised by the bee, thus creating a small opening.  On the outer edges of this opening are stiff, short hairs that act like cleansing teeth.  To clean her right antenna, the bee bends the antenna toward the left, opens the "gate," then draws her antenna back and forth between the stiff hairs until all dirt and dust are removed!  She does the same thing with her other antenna until both are clean and functioning again!  Clever, isn't it?  Can anyone believe that such a practical, ingenius setup came to pass by chance mutations?

Bees' Wings

            The bee has two pairs of amazingly efficient powerful wings that give convincing evidence of special "design."  The bee has a rather bulky body and needs large wings to fly efficiently.  But large wings would, on the other hand, hinder the bee's entering the narrow six-sided cell in the hive.  So the Great Designer solved this problem in "engineering" in this manner:  the larger front wing has on its rear edge a ridge to which hooks on the back wing are fastened when flying.  This device converts the four wings into TWO LARGE WINGS FOR FLIGHT.  When not in flight, the wings are released and they overlap, greatly reducing their size!  The wings, moreover, are so made that in flight they move in a figure eight design, which makes it possible for the bee to go in any direction — up, down, side to side, backwards and forwards, or remain motionless while hovering before a flower — much like a hummingbird.  This system of wing structure is so complicated and yet so perfectly adapted to its intended purpose that one can not but marvel at the Genius who designed it!

Why does a Bee have Compound Eyes?

            Between their two large compound eyes, having many facets, bees (like many other insects) have three tiny eyes.  Taken together (the compound eyes and the small eyes) the bee must have wonderful vision.  There seems, however, to be a special purpose for the bee's compound eyes.  The bee is largely guided by what is called "the polarity of sunlight." 

            The complex eyes of bees serve as a most complex compass, built into its head.  These compound, faceted eyes are sensitive to the degree of 'the polarity of sunlight.'  It should be explained that the waves of light streaming from the sun in all directions travel directly outward, in a straight line, in one direction.  Now as the earth revolves, an animal (including insects) on its surface views this direction of the light from a constantly changing angle as the sun rises and sets.  The bee, through its intricate, compound eyes, by simply glancing at any part of the sky in daylight, can interpret this angle immediately, and thus determine the position of the sun, the time of day, and its own position relative to its hive or the place where its food is!  And this makes possible its long flights from its hive and its knowledge of its way home.  Not only so, it makes possible the intricate "dance of the bees" (which we discuss later in this chapter) by means of which bees communicate to other bees in the hive vital information about their newly discovered food supply. 

            Surely the eyes of the bee, and the use it makes of its eyes, demands a Creative Intelligence of a high order — to put such wonders in so small an insect! 

The Bee's Stinger and Sting 

            A worker bee has a sting at the tail end of her abdomen.  The sting has little barbs at its point which turn backward and make the sting stick in the victim's skin so firmly that the bee cannot pull it out.  She must literally tear herself away — and leave part of her internal organs attached too the sting.  Soon after that she dies.  Who or what made a terrible "mistake" like that!  Certainly evolution, seeking ever for "the

survival of the fittest," would not do that.  And what bee would desire, or help evolve a sting that meant her own destruction?  This is a perfect argument for Creation, and a perfect argument against evolution ("natural selection" and "survival of the fittest"). — for here is a case where the price of a specialized organ is DEATH, not survival, growth, development or enlargement.  But GOD made it so — and it remains so to this day.

            The efficiency of the sting is assured by this special arrangement: attached muscles pump the poison into the wound even after the bee has flown away.  Just a "chance arrangement" of blind evolution? No; it was planned that way.

BEES AS CHEMICAL FACTORIES 

            Bees have a special "honey stomach" separate from their own food-digesting stomach.  The bee carries the nectar in this special honey stomach; there the sweet, natural fluid is transformed into honey!  Were "survival of the fittest" the law of life, bees would not be interested in developing a second stomach: for they could readily adapt to live on nectar.  But GOD planned it that way for "colony" needs and colony survival — and also for the needs of man.

            The delicious honey that the bee make out of nectar contains levulose, dextrose, other sugars, dextrines, gums, vitamins, proteins, mineral salts (calcium, iron, copper, zinc), iodine, several enzymes, and many other vital and nutritional substances.  The little honeybee is the only creature on earth that makes honey in quantities large enough to benefit man significantly.

            Bees make a bee glue — "propolis"— from the sticky covering on certain buds.  If a mouse chances to get into their hive, they will sting him to death, and then dispose of the body by coating it from head to tail with "propolis," bee glue.  This forms an airtight mausoleum for the decaying mouse: so there is no odor nor contamination of their living quarters!  It was not in vain that God enabled bees to make this glue or varnish.

            Bees make wax out of honey in four little pockets (manufacturing centers) on their abdomens.  In order to start the secretion of wax special heat is needed; so the bees gather together in a large pendant mass, their wings buzzing rapidly all the while.  Presently, "a strange sweat, white as snow. . . .begins to break out over the swarm."  These are wax scales that are removed by the bees with a pair of pincers found at one of their knee joints.  These scales are then chewed into a soft paste which can be readily molded into the delicate wax film of the cells.  Even skilled chemists cannot make bees' wax as good as that made by bees!

            "Bees' wax is unlike anything else.  It contains a fatty acid called cerin, minute quantities of alcohol, myricin, hydro-carbons etc.  It has a higher melting point (1400) than other waxes."

            They also make another grade of wax.  When the larva has grown in its cell to fill the space, worker bees seal over the cell with a special type of porous wax so that the larva can breathe.

            Bees make a magic "royal jelly" that they can feed to their grubs for their first 48 hours after hatching from eggs.  This "royal jelly" is manufactured in the ductless glands of the nurse bees.  When queens are desired, the nurse bees feed the grubs five days on royal jelly, instead of only two.  If queens are not desired, at the end of forty-eight hours the grubs are taken off the royal jelly diet and fed a mixture of honey and pollen dust — mixed in EXACT proportions!  This is another instance of surprising knowledge and accuracy.  This change in food brings about the birth of a neutral (female) bee — the workers with which we are familiar.  How the prolonged feeding of the grub on royal jelly brings about the change from a normal neutral worker bee to a queen bee is not know.

            After the grub is sealed in its wax cell, the larva spins a silk cocoon; but the larva's "silk factory" is presently discarded when the larva is transformed into its final "bee" form.  How is it that the ability to make silk is present with the bee in the larvel form just when needed, and no longer?  God makes no mistakes.

            Needless to say, though we have touched on some of the high spots, our resume of the bee as a "chemical factory" is superficial.  Were one to go into ALL of the chemical abilities of the bee, it would be a most astonishing presentation of the manufacture of proteins, enzymes, digestive juices, various and sundry types of cells, and a thousand and one molecular combinations that would startle us into rapturous astonishment.

BEES' WORK OF POLLINATING FLOWERS 

            Bees pollinate over fifty flowers and agricultural crops while collecting nectar.  In this way they are "fifty times more valuable to society than through the honey they produce."  Without their pollination orchards would produce little or no fruit., and many crops could not be grown.  No practical substitute for this pollination has been found. *

            * The annual yield of insect-pollinated plants is $4½ billion.  Honey bees are responsible for more than 80% of this.  (Animal Life and Lore," page 288).

            When the bee goes into the flower after nectar, it innocently collects the golden pollen as it rubs its body against the precious powder when it enters the flower.  When the bee goes to another flower, some of the pollen is rubbed off on the second flower, and that flower is fertilized, with the bee as the unwitting agent.  Then the surplus pollen is carried back to the hive by the bee in its "pollen baskets".

            As a pollinator, the bee is very efficient, due to its habit of visiting only one plant species at certain times of the day and of certain seasons.

            For its own sake the bee might as well be promiscuous in visiting flowers.  But for the sake of pollinating flowers and for the future of the colony — done unconsciously by the bee — it is necessary that bees go to the same species of flowers for a period of time before switching to other flowers.  The pollen of one genus of flower will not fertilize another genus.

            A little thought will convince one that bees and the flowers they pollinate MUST have been created at about the same time, for "the flowers need the bees for pollination and the bees need the flowers for food — for their very survival."  Here we see a wonderful partnership, the work of an Infinite Creator.

BEES AND HEREDITY

            A queen is the mother of all the 10,000 to 100,000 bees in the hive.  Fertilized during a nuptial flight by a male bee four or five days after her emergence from her cell as a queen bee, she may lay as many as 2,000 eggs a day during the nectar gathering season, and keep that up for two or three years!  All from one mating!  After the male's sperm is deposited in her body, the sperm sac is torn from him, causing his death.  Then she returns to the hive and deposits one egg to a cell, so the maggots are hatched in cells.

            The baby bee, which hatches out of the egg in about three days, certainly does NOT resemble its mother.  It is a fat white grub with neither wings nor legs and almost no head.  Helpless,  it lies waiting in its cell for nurse bees to feed it.  So hungry are these youngsters that each one needs over a thousand meals a day.  The greedy little creatures grow so fast that in six days each fills its cell tightly and is ready to take the next step in its life, the step that is called pupating.  The nurses build a wax cover over the cell and the larva spins a silk cocoon inside.  Within the larval skin wonderful changes take place.  Legs and wings push out and the body changes shape to make three distinct parts — head, thorax, and abdomen.  The skin hardens and turns dark.  After twelve days the adult worker is ready to cast off her larval skin and chew her way out of her cell."

            The transformation of grub into adult bee, during the pupating process, is a MYSTERY AND A MIRACLE far beyond human comprehension.  It is impossible to explain it by natural causes.  It is a well known phenomenon that can be explained only by admitting a supernatural Creator.

            When the queen desires a worker bee, her pressure on the sperm-carrying sac in her body forces a sperm into the egg — and a female bee is conceived.  If a drone or male is desired, she does NOT press on the sperm sac; the drone is thus an example of "parthenogenesis, * or virgin birth: for the drone has a mother and grandparents, but NO FATHER.  This complicated manner of procreation defies explanation; save on the basis of Divine Creation.  And honeybees have continued producing queens, workers and drones since ancient times — and honeybees are still honeybees!

            * Rose aphids also give birth by parthenogenesis to live young. (See the June, 1961, "National Geographic.")  Other examples include some moths, some marine worms, some plants and some birds.

             Without serving an apprenticeship, twenty-four hours after emergence from her cell and cocoon, the young bee begins her duties as a nurse bee, and she performs her duties without instruction, confusion or lack of skill — the perfect example of both individual and "community" instinct.  She is able to make royal jelly and feed her sisters who are just coming into adult life.  The entire process, from the nuptial flight, to the laying of so many eggs for so long a time, through the stages of larva, pupa and adult bee, is marvelous — as wonderful as the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly.  It can not be accounted for by any theory of evolution.

THE "LEAF-CUTTER" BEES 

            There are many kinds of bees.  One of the most interesting is the so-called "Leaf-cutter" bee.  There is an essay by J. Henri Fabre, noted entomologist, in the book, "Green Treasury" (pages 463; ff.) that gives this incredible information:

            If one has a cooking pot that has lost its lid, no one will attempt to go to the store and buy a lid to fit it without taking an exact measure of the top of the pot.  This homely illustration will help us appreciate this amazing feat of the Leaf-cutter bee.

            "The Leaf-cutter has no mental picture of her 'pot' because she has never seen it; in fact, she has probably never seen any sort of a 'pot' built by her neighbors.  She must, far away from home, cut out a disc from a leaf that will FIT the top of her 'jar' when she gets it made. . . .In doing her job the leaf-cutter cuts a pile of discs (from leaves), finds a vacated chamber of the Capricorn from which the nymph has departed, and in this she builds her cells.  Using various sizes cut from various types of leaves she constructs cells.  (Mr. Fabre counted one cell that was made of 714 pieces of leaves).  She barricades the opening into the chamber by 350 more pieces of leaves — making a total of 1064 pieces of leaves used so far in her construction job.  One dauntless bee and one alone has produced the whole of this prodigious mass!"

            The pieces stacked up to make lids were brought up before the cells were made.  When completed, she places these round pieces of leaves — 'lids' — and they fit perfectly!  "When cutting these pieces for the 'lids' the bee was as sure of her scissors as a dressmaker guided by a pattern — AND YET SHE WAS CUTTING WITHOUT A MODEL, WITHOUT HAVING IN FRONT OF HER THE MOUTH (of the cell) TO BE CLOSED.  All leaf-cutters have the same talent for making lids for their 'pots' (cells)".

            Amazing, isn't it.  Such wisdom (without native intelligence to warrant it) must come from outside the bee, from the all-wise, Divine Creator.  Who can contemplate the marvels of bees and not glorify the God who created them?

            There are many other varieties of bees, all with distinctive characteristics.  Some of these bees are the "Mining bee," the "Cuckoo bee," the "Giant cotton bee," the "Sweat bee" that nests in the soil, the "Resin bee" that builds a nest of pebbles, sticking them together with resin, and the "Carpenter bee" of Africa that excavates a chamber in a pithy plant stem.  In this study our main interest is in the well known honeybee.

THE LANGUAGE OF BEES 

            Unbelievable as it sounds, honeybees actually have a "language" by which they "talk" to one another.  To be sure, it is not a spoken language; however, they communicate with each other through special movements (called "dances") and through scents.  The famous Austrian scientists, Prof. Karl von Frische, whose work with bees has won him international fame, has demonstrated that the honeybee indicates the presence, direction and distance of pollen and nectar food to other members of the hive, by executing strange little geometric dances.

            A foraging bee comes home with a full load of pollen and nectar.  She flies straight to the hive to share her harvest and to tell the other bees where it is.  When she reaches the hive she first of all gives other bees sips of nectar from her mouth; then she begins a little dance, called the round dance.  She circles to the right, then to the left, and repeats this many times.  She dances energetically for about half a minute.  This means, "There is good food nearby."

            Other bees fly out to find the food.  They know which kind of flower to look for by the scent of the nectar on the returning bee.  When these bees get back to the hive with their loads of food, they also perform the same dance —  provided there is still plenty of food left there.  But when the food begins to run out, the returning bees dance less and less vigorously and more briefly, so that fewer bees are stimulated to go to that place.

            Now, bees sometimes fly a mile or more on foraging trips.  On long trips they use a different dance to announce food that is more than about 100 yards away.  Through this dance, the bees can actually tell how far away the food is, and in what direction!  "The dancer makes a short straight run forward, wagging her abdomen from side to side.  Then she turns left in a half circle, comes straight forward again with her tail-wagging motion, and circles to the right.  She reveals the approximate distance to the food by the speed of the dancing — the faster the dance, the closer the food.  She tells the direction of the food from the hive by the direction in which she makes her tail-wagging run. . . Most

of the bees that pay attention to her message will come to exactly the spot she visited!"

            Von Frische was so surprised at his discovery that he said, "No competent scientist ought to believe these things" — and yet his work has been verified and proven correct.

            After Von Frische had learned "the language of the bees" he got an assistant to put some bee food at some distance from a hive — but Von Frische knew not where.  When a bee found it, it was distinctly marked and then Von Frische watched carefully its dance when it returned to the hive.  He interpreted the message the bee danced to its fellows at the hive; and then the naturalist said to his assistant:  "The food you placed is 320 meters from the hive" — and he also gave the direction.  Checking showed that actually the food had been placed 332 meters from the hive, and in a direction he had estimated correctly to within four degrees!

            Ronald Ribbands, University of Cambridge naturalist, has discovered that in addition to the "dance" of the bees, their "taste and smell" also play an important role in their methods of communicating with each other. *

            * For those who wish further information on this subject, we suggest the pamphlet, "THE SCENT LANGUAGE OF HONEYBEES," by Ronald Ribbands.  Published by The Smithsonian Institute (1956);  (Publication Number 4243).  See additional material on BEES in the ADDENDUM.  These recently published facts are interesting!   (Typists Note.  I will type that out when I get to it)

THE PHENOMENON OF "COMMUNITY INSTINCT" 

            The extraordinary abilities of bees is explained by all — creationists and evolutionists — as due to "instinct."  Bees truly have amazing instincts.  Take for example their striking "architectural" abilities, which are far beyond what the bees' limited intelligence warrants.  Bees, as you know, construct their cells in double tiers — directly opposite each other — with one bottom serving for both cells.  And since the cells are six-sided, each one of the six sides of each cell is also the side for another cell next to it — the best possible shape for the prevention of waste.  These cells, called "one of the wonders of the natural world," are made of thin plates of pliable wax.  ALL OF THIS CONSTRUCTION WORK IS DONE IN TOTAL DARKNESS.  When occasion requires, such as in odd corners, the cells are shaped square, triangular, or just to fit the space.  The cells are tipped up slightly from the horizontal, to hold the honey better.  They are always filled before being capped.  The cells are geometrically accurate, having "a precision that baffles description."  This amazing ability is for the benefit of the COLONY, and is called "colony instinct."

            Colony instinct is further seen in the realm of community protection.  A stranger approaching a hive may notice bees circling around in a wide sweep.  These are guards constantly on the lookout — seeking the protection of the colony, not especially their own — and if an enemy threatens the hive one of the guards notifies the colony and a large detachment of "soldiers" goes forth, ready to attack if any attempt is made against the hive: and the courage of the bees knows no limit in defence of their home and their treasure.

            The bees' plan to generate heat when needed.  As is true of all insects, honeybees are cold-blooded creatures:  they cannot regulate their body temperature to a specific degree as people can.  However, differing from most other insects, they can and do produce considerable heat by the activity of their bodies.  In a cold hive bees begin a muscular activity that resembles shivering.  The colony forms a compact cluster.  The bees on the outside of this cluster crowd closely together and turn their heads inward, thus forming a sort of shell.  The bees in the center of the cluster move rapidly, shake their bodies, and fan their wings in a lively manner.  In this way they produce a summer temperature inside that cluster though the thermometer may show freezing on the outside of the hive.  In the summer when it is too hot inside the hive, bees air-condition the hive by gathering outside, beating their wings vigorously, so blowing air into their hive.  These activities of course give more evidence of "community instinct."

Bees are Guided by INSTINCT — not by Intelligence 

            J. Henri Fabre, the great French entomologist, says, "the bees' instinct is fixed, unchanging, limited and non-progressive as the law of gravity."  (This leaves no room for evolution).

            Fabre placed a piece of straw in some cells in a hive and the bees extracted these straws as often as placed there UNTIL THE HONEY-GATHERING PERIOD HAD PASSED and the egg-laying season took its place.  Then the bees would ignore the straws in the cells.  Even the queen would lay her eggs in cells with straws in them, as she did in the perfect cells having no straws.  The workers would then seal them up at the proper time, as they did the untouched cells.  If these bees had the faintest degree of intelligence they would know no young bee could develop in the abnormal condition with a straw in the cell.  On the passing of the honey-gathering season, their 'instinctive disposition' had changed and they were helpless to recall the departed impulse.  Fabre tells of other tests, and the insects' failure to adjust themselves, and so he concludes that bees are "hopelessly non-progressive, and non-intelligent." 

            Fred Kohler, prominent evolutionist, writing on "The Societal Organism," (page 59, "Evolution and Human Destiny"), concedes that the individuals in a beehive do NOT show evidence of the intelligence that the whole colony shows.

            "In its functioning the (bee) colony acts as if it 'knew' what it was doing.  This appears particularly remarkable when one considers that the individual insect apparently does NOT possess by itself the degree of intelligence evident in the functioning of the colony.  Despite the apparent lack of consciousness of the individual insect, the colony shows a rational behaviour — a behaviour that is directed to assure the survival of the colony.  HOW IS SUCH A SITUATION POSSIBLE?"  (Caps, bold face, ours).

            Well might Fred Kohler ask, "HOW IS SUCH A SITUATION POSSIBLE?"  He further states, "As true instincts are neither taught nor transmitted by example from one generation to the next, they must, as there is no other possibility, be part of the genetic code determining the species."  He then suggests that instincts are subject to "mutations" just as much as physical characteristics.  We would like to ask Dr. Kohler — HOW CAN AN INSTINCT NECESSARY FOR THE SURVIVAL OF THE COLONY COME ABOUT "GRADUALLY?"  If the "instinct" to build wax cells is only partly there, the colony will not survive.

            And how can he possibly explain a "colony instinct" — geared to the survival of the colony rather than the individual and yet it is a "part of the genetic code" of each individual — as the result of evolution, when evolution teaches the SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST:  i.e., each individual seeks FIRST for its own survival?

            We repeat:  "a gradually evolving instinct" is impossible, for the first bees that ever lived had to know as much as their modern descendants about cell construction, wax making, bee glue, royal jelly, the secrets of feeding, the way to predetermine sex, nectar gathering and honey making — otherwise the entire colony would have perished before evolution had a chance to get it started!  To believe that the abilities, characteristics, physical make-up, specialized "organs" (such as the stinger, the antennae cleaner, and the pollen basket) and instincts came about through gradual development is utterly impossible to the logical, open mind.  Such a theory can be received only by those who have been brainwashed into blind adherence to a dogma, believing because "others (with 'authority' or 'scientific standing') believe it."  IF there ever was a time when the colony instincts of bees were only partially developed, there never could have been bee swarms that survived!  BEES FROM THE VERY BEGINNING HAD TO BE AS THEY ARE NOW, or there would be no bees today.

            No wonder that Charles Darwin, in one of his books, found in the common honeybee a problem that baffled him "more than any other he encountered." 

            "It looks as though God Almighty," says H. Gracey (in, Evolution and the Honeybee) "in this little insect (the bee) prepared a trap to catch and baffle the ablest men that ever tried to support the evolutionary theory.  In the honeybee we have a highly endowed little creature with instincts that seem to rival reasoning powers more closely than the instincts of any other creature — and yet there is no door left open for the entrance or the transmission of these wonderful peculiarities.  The parents of the bee (the queen and the drone) have none of these instincts to transmit; and the honeybee itself (which has no offspring) can transmit nothing.  Mr. Darwins theory of transmission is closed at both ends.  We must admit: THIS IS THE HAND OF GOD."

            (2)  Ubiquitous ANTS:  Energetic Witnesses For Creation

            "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest." Proverbs 6:6-8.

            "The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer."  Proverbs 30:25

            GO TO THE ANT, thou mental sluggard — and learn lessons of God's great work of creation!  Ants are to be found most everywhere: in cities, in the fields, in deserts, in forests and in dense jungles of the earth.  Ants belong to the insect order Hymenoptera, to which bees and wasps also belong.  Some ants are winged and some are wingless; noticeably large (i.e., for ants) and some are so small they can scarcely be recognized as ants.  In color they may be red, black, red and black, brown or yellow.  They can be readily distinguished from other insects by their slender waist (called the petiole) on the top of which rise one or two bumps called nodes.  ALL ants live in colonies; there are no solitary kinds.  Each colony consists of three kinds or castes: queens, males and workers (undeveloped females).  Queen ants lay eggs.  In some ant colonies, the workers come in different sizes — and each does the work best suited to its size.  Some of the workers are called "soldiers" because of their unusually large jaws which enable them to defend the nest.  Some ants can sting; others bite; and still others squirt a bad-smelling, irritating fluid on their enemies.  Some ants, like the famous army ants, are blind, and are guided by the senses of touch and smell.  There are over 2500 species of ants — each a marvel of creation.

Stages in the Development of Ants from Eggs 

            With most species, only the queens and males have wings; and they have them only for the mating flight.  After mating, the male ant soon dies.  A lone queen can start a new colony.

            Upon her descent to earth, the queen either bites or breaks off her own wings.  (If other ants are with her, they often tear off her wings for her).  She eats her fill of food which the workers bring in.  The workers take the eggs as she lays them, place them in nurseries, carry them from day to day from one gallery to another, even bringing them out of the nest into the sunshine, then restoring them to an underground gallery at night, so that their eggs get both the necessary heat and moisture.  The eggs hatch (according to the season) between fourteen and forty days.

            Small, white fleshy grubs emerge — legless and conical in shape.  They are helpless and have to be fed by the workers with a special, semi-predigested food.  The larvae may reach the chrysalis form in a month or six weeks, but some species live through the winter in the larval stage, requiring the unremitting attention of their nurses throughout that long period!

            The chrysalis may either be naked, or be encased in a neat silken cocoon.  Now here is one of the fascinating miracles of "colony Instinct" with which the Creator has gifted some species:

            When a larva is ready to spin its cocoon, worker ants bury it in a hole in the ground.  Burying is necessary, because the chubby, legless larva needs something on which to fasten its silken thread as it begins to spin.  The silk flows from the larva's mouth, not from the abdomen, as in spiders.  SOMEHOW OR OTHER THE WORKERS SEEM TO KNOW WHEN THE COCOON IS FINISHED.  They then dig it up, clean it off, and carry it to a suitable place in the nest.  The workers again know when to help, when the new adult ant within the cocoon is ready to emerge.  THEY THEN CUT OPEN THE COCOON and free the new adult ant, which is so feeble it can not open the cocoon by itself!  How can one account for this amazing "colony instinct" that causes the worker ants to look so thoroughly after the larva cocoon — doing exactly as they should, at exactly the right time — even knowing when to exhume the buried cocoon?  Evolution has no satisfactory answer; such an intricate procedure, INVOLVING THE WELFARE OF THE COLONY, and taking no thought for the welfare of the individual ant, proves that a Master Mind created both the little animals and their instincts that make such an involved, altruistic system work!

The Strange Case of the Tents made by Baby Ants

            Dr. William Mann first observed the strange family life of the curious ant, Polyrhachis simplex, when he explored the Kerak region of Palestine in 1914.

            "Small silk-and-leaf structures that the explorer found on bushes near his tent were the tip off that Polyrhachis was living in the vicinity.  Each of these structures shelters leaf hoppers, which exude a kind of nectar that the ants feed on.  The ants were sheltering the hoppers, as humans keep milk cows, to furnish food for the colony."

            Later Dr. Mann discovered HOW the aerial "cow barns" for the food-producing leaf hoppers were built.

            "Worker ants were carrying Polyrhachis' newly hatched larvae to the building site.  THEN THESE INFANTS (LARVAE) SET TO WORK SPINNING THE SILK TO MAKE SHELTERS FOR THE FAMILY'S MILK COWS!"

            This is a phenomenon of the first order: silk-making larvae, before they made their own cocoons, are used by the worker ants to make shelters out of silk, to protect the "cows" (leaf hoppers) used by the ants as their source of food!  Remember, this achievement is NOT the result of native "intelligence" in the ant — for they have practically no intelligence; but it is the result of an OUTSIDE INTELLIGENCE WHO EQUIPPED THESE ANTS WITH THE "INSTINCT" TO KNOW HOW TO DO THIS AND THEY DO IT!

True Symbiosis:  The Case of the Blue Butterfly and the Ants

            If the case of the Ants who make Shelters for their Cows is interesting, this one is even more so.

            "In June the larva of the large blue butterfly of England hatches on the wild thyme bushes.  It feeds for about twenty days, then moults.  After moulting the larva stops eating and wanders about aimlessly.  At this point ants gather about the larva and (1) stroke its honey gland with their antennae and drink the sweet droplets it gives off.  Finally and ant picks up the larva in its powerful jaws and carries it underground to its nest.  (2)  Here the larva is permitted to feed on ANT GRUBS, and it continues to yield 'honey' whenever the ants stroke it.   By winter the larva has become four times its original size and has gone into hibernation. The following spring it becomes active again and soon encases itself in a cocoon.  (3)  In May a lovely butterfly emerges from the cocoon, makes its way above ground, where it flies off to lays its eggs!"

            Here is a case in which ants sacrifice some of their own grubs, in order to keep their "cows" (butterfly larvae) alive and willing to be :milked" of their "honey" on which the ants feed!  In this manner two different orders of creatures help each other — true symbiosis.  One is dependent on the other.  Explain this phenomenon?  GOD MADE IT SO!

More Evidences of the "Colony Instinct" in Ants

            When building their homes, they divide into troops.  One troop does the excavating.  Their habitations are well-planned, and include a central assembly, or "club house," where they gather in large numbers.  They provide numerous entrances to their underground dwellings.  At night, when most of them are resting, they keep a few sentinels on duty.  They also make outside roads leading up to their hill.

            The colony instinct in ants results in a well-organised community life.  After completing their home, with its many chambers and tunnels, all well-planned and constructed, "they gather food, feed their young, and tend to their domestic animals — and EACH MEMBER OF THE COLONY FULFILLS ITS DUTIES WITHOUT HESITATION OR CONFUSION. . . . Certainly there is no counterpart among other living creatures to the military, food-gathering, cattle-keeping, and slave-making activities of the ants or to the perfectly ordered system of the beehive."

How Ants Maintain their Food Supply 

            Some ants keep "cows," others run "farms." some make "biscuits," and still others store their food in living vats!  Other means of gathering and storing food are too numerous to elaborate, but all are extremely interesting and instructive.

            HARVESTER ANTS, large, long-legged red or black ants, eat dry foods, especially seeds.  They gather and then store the seeds in their nests.  After long periods of wet weather, the harvesters bring their seeds out into the sunshine to dry.  Sometimes, when the seeds sprout in the nests, the workers remove the growing plants before they clog the passageways!

Some ants steal their food.  Dr. Charles D. Michener says, 

            "Some species of tiny ants nest near or actually inside the nests of larger ants.  These small ants creep into the passages of the big ants and steal their food.  When they are chased, they escape into the tiny passages they built that are too small for the big ants to enter."

            The small "Argentine" Ants keep "cows."  Outdoors they eat dead insects, flower nectar and honeydew — the sweet juice excreted by plant lice and other small leaf-sucking insects.  To be sure of a good supply of honeydew, the Argentine ants — and many other species — care for these plant lice as farmers care for their cows.  They stroke their little "cows" to coax them to give droplets of honeydew.  They even carry their insect "livestock" to different plants in the garden, to make sure they have plenty to eat.  Some ants take their plant lice into their own nests for the winter.  And they will dig tunnels in the soil for the convenience of root-sucking plant live.

            Ants that make biscuits:  Studies of the common Mediterranean ant, Aphaenogaster barbarus, have revealed that these ants actually make biscuits from the seeds they collect!

            The seeds are collected and dried, and later put out in the rain till germination begins.  After germination the seeds are dried . . . and later chewed into a kind of dough that is then dried into biscuits!  (Nature Parade, page 27).

            The famous "LEAF-CUTTER" or 'PARASOL" ANTS THAT MAKE GARDENS AND RAISE THEIR OWN CROPS!  These amazing creatures are called "Leaf-cutter" or "Parasol" ants because they may be seen in processions, each one bearing above its head a bit of green leaf!  These bits of green leaf are NOT for food, but are taken to their nests and made into compost — for these ants are actually FARMERS (perhaps the only "farmers" in the animal kingdom, with the exception of certain termites).  They deliberately sow, prune, manure, weed, and harvest their crops, which are different kinds of fungi.  (Some seem to be related to the mushrooms we rise).  In the Bronx Zoo in New York City a colony of these farmer ants is on display, started there in 1950 when a queen and her attendants were shipped to the Zoo from Trinidad.

            The British naturalist, Thomas Belt, published the results of some special investigations he made of these "farmer" or "parasol" ("leaf-cutter") ants.

            He discovered  that the ants do not eat the cut leaves but hash them up into a compost, on which they sow the spores of certain fungi.  The ant farmers weed and cultivate these fungi as carefully as any gardener tends his cabbages.  The little plants are not permitted to reach the fruiting or "toadstool" stage; instead the ants constantly prune them back — with a purpose!

            The repeatedly pruned fungus forms tiny knots, about the size of a pinhead, called "kohlrabies."  These are eaten by the ants.  The kohlrabi we eat is really a greatly thickened stalk of cauliflower; it is not found in nature, but is the result of human horticulture.  The kohlrabi of the ants is just as clear a case of horticultural know-how!  THIS IS TRULY "SCIENTIFIC" FARMING!

            They use this cultivated food for another purpose.  By rationing the amount of kohlrabi eaten, these ants produce four or five different sizes of ants that they put into different "castes" of workers.  Those fed on minimum amounts never grow up to be more than "minims," tiny workers who tend the fungus garden and feed the larvae.  A medium-rich diet develops the "mediae." workers who do most of the leaf-stripping.  More food develops the big, fierce soldiers who defend the nest; they can bite so savagely that they draw blood.  And a still richer diet produces the idle males and virgin "princesses." Both winged in preparation for the nuptial flight.

            (The account goes on to tell of the queen wrenching off her own wings and starting a new nest).  (Condensed from the Readers Digest article, "WONDERLAND OF ANTS").

            WHO MADE "SCIENTIFIC" FARMERS OUT OF THESE TINY INSECTS that have no intelligence — that is, no power to think through a problem — but are guided entirely by "blind, tyrannical instinct?"  When one sees such a miracle as this in nature, he can but "bow and worship."

Ants that store Honey in their own Bodies

            Some ants eat nothing but honeydew.  These so-called "HONEY ANTS" store collected sweets for dry, needy periods by making some of their own ants into LIVING STORAGE TANKS.  While these "repletes" are yet young, they are fed such enormous quantities of honeydew that their skin stretches and they swell into round balls as big as peas, full of the precious honeydew.  They cannot move; but merely hang from the ceiling of the cavernous nest foe the rest of their lives, receiving and dispensing honeydew as required.  There is one thing about it — they probably never get hungry, so they might be satisfied in their overstuffed existence.  Honey ants of one species, found in Australia, fill certain of their numbers full of honeydew, then put them in cells and keep them in prison for the rest of their lives!  The other ants then feed from these living storage tanks during the dry season.

Experiments Prove Ants Act through INSTINCT, Not through Intelligence

A writer in the June, '57 "Scientific American" says,

            "Here is an ant.  It exhibits an extremely complex pattern of behavior.  Does this signify intelligence or is the behavior purely automatic?  We observe, for example, that the animal attacks every foreign ant that enters its territory.  Does it recognize the newcomer as a stranger and anticipate a potential danger to its own group?  Or is it merely acting automatically to a strange odor from the newcomer?  As a test we extract some juice from a strange ant and smear a little of it on a member of the ant nest.  When the ant returns to its own nest, its nest-mates become greatly excited; they quickly attack and kill it. . . .The ants are NOT acting with intelligence but simply as automatons, responding blindly to an order in accordance with mechanisms (instincts) which nature has built in them."

            The obvious deduction is, since ants do NOT have intelligence, but are motivated solely by instincts, that these instincts were GIVEN TO THEM BY AN OUTSIDE FORCE to preserve them as a species and properly equip them to live successfully in their environment.  That being the case, ants are the work of Creation and were made in the beginning as they are now.  A SLOW PROCESS OF EVOLUTION, GRADUAL CHANGE, BRINGING TO PASS DECIDED INSTINCTS AND SPECIALIZED PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS THROUGH LONG ERAS OF TIME WOULD NEVER PERMIT THE SURVIVAL OF THE SPECIES DURING THE PERIOD OF DEVELOPMENT.

ANTS TOO HAVE A "LANGUAGE" 

                        Though not as astounding as the language of bees, ants too have a means of communicating to other ants. 

            Ants rely almost entirely upon odor trails.  When an ant "scout" finds a lot of good food, she becomes excited and hurries back to the nest, with her abdomen lowered until it nearly touches the ground.  A faint scent comes from her abdomen and clings to the surface on which she runs.  When she gets home, she gives some of her food to the other ants.  They get excited and follow her trail to the food supply.  Each ant going over the trail strengthens the odor and soon a steady stream of ants flows to and from the nest.  By some mysterious way (still unknown to science) trailing ants can tell from the odor WHAT DIRECTION the scout took on the path; that is, they know if they are going or coming toward the nest on the path.  If you let ants trail over a piece of paper and then turn the paper so that the path is reversed, the ants will be confused and MAY GO BACK THE WAY THEY CAME . . . ."An ant is not really intelligent.  It is guided by instinct.  Ants can learn quickly to follow a trail (by the scent) but if a trail is made to follow a circle, ANTS MAY FOLLOW IT ROUND AND ROUND UNTIL THEY FALL OVER DEAD."

VARIETIES OF ANTS

            The largest of our common ants are the shiny black CARPENTER ANTS.  Some species are nearly half an inch long.  These large, awkward-in-movement creatures may get into the woodwork of a house and riddle it with their galleries.  They make their nests by digging in the soil or by chewing galleries in wood.  they do not eat the wood, but remove it to make space for their nests.

            HARVESTER ANTS dig nests in the soil and live on the seeds they gather and store for winter.

            HONEY ANTS live on nectar from flowers or honeydew from aphid ("cows"), as we have described above.

            KIDNAPER ANTS hide in the walls of other species' nests and then steal their babies.

            SLAVE-RAIDING ANTS tear open the nests of other ants, seize their hapless young and carry them away to make slaves of them.

            AMAZON ANTS cannot live without the help of slaves of other species.  Amazon ants are large, bright red or partly black ants with peculiar, long sickle-shaped jaws.  These jaws make excellent weapons for fighting, but they are very poor tools for eating, digging, feeding or carrying babies.  So these ants must capture slaves to keep themselves from starving to death.  An Amazon queen will enter a nest of black ants to start her colony.  She will probably murder the black queen with her sharp jaws.  Soon she is accepted by the black ants as their new queen.  Later, her brood enslave the black ants and make them do their work.

            In Kenya, Africa, is a species of DRIVER ANTS in which each colony has three queens that turn out no fewer than 11 million eggs annually!  The workers of this species reportedly can kill a wounded elephant and pick his bones clean.  the workers in this species have TWO stomachs; one for their own use, the other, a "social" stomach for food for the non-working members of the nest!  Who designed that phenomenon?  It had to come from an outside Intelligence.

            CORNFIELD ANTS, very numerous, and widely distributed, eat the sweet secretions of corn-plot aphids.  Aphids lay their eggs in the ant burrows.  When these hatch in the spring, the ants place the aphids on weed roots till the corn is planted and growing.  then the ants transfer the aphids to the corn roots, thus insuring a constant, desirable food supply!

            MOUND-BUILDER ANTS construct great cities in the soil, carrying up dirt and sand bit by bit until they have mounds three feet high and ten feet in diameter, filled with hundreds of tunnels, rooms and storage vaults.  These large ants, also called the ALLEGHENY ANTS, often build on wooded slopes, among pine trees.  They mix pine needles with twigs, straw and other debris, in making their vast honeycomb of intercommunicating passages and chambers in the mounds.  Some students estimate that perhaps 100,000,000 ants may occupy one of these larger nests, and that the nests may remain tenanted for 20, 40, to even 80 years, if left undisturbed.

            One of the most fascinating of all ants is the Oecophylla smaragdina; the word "Oecophylla" meaning "leaf house."  The "leaf house" these odd ants build is high up in trees!  And the leaves are the living leaves of the tree which are woven together by silky threads.  About a half century ago a travelling zoologist, Franz Doflien, observed what took place up there in the boughs.

            "Worker ants, working in gangs, held the leaves together, clinging to the edge of one with all six legs and holding the edge of the other leaf with their mandibles.  If the distance between the leaves was too great, an ant chain was made by one ant holding another in its mandibles, until the chain was long enough to span the distance from one leaf to the other.  Sometimes chains of seven or eight ants are necessary to reach from one leaf to the other.  Once this has been accomplished, the whole chain slowly retreats to the leaf on which the supporting ant was standing, until the two leaves have been pulled together sufficiently so that they could be held in place by a single row of ants.  Then another gang of workers appears, EACH ONE CARRYING AN ANT LARVA IN ITS MOUTH."  Franz Doflien then observed that, while the adult ant can not spin a thread, the larva can.  Using their own larvae like upholstery needles — or like shuttles, to us Doflien's term — THE ANTS WOULD THEN WEAVE, OR SEW, THE LEAVES TOGETHER until they had their nest complete.

            What "chance mutation," pray tell, first led the ground-loving ants to venture into the business of building nests in high trees, out of LEAVES and not out of sand and dirt and pine needles?  And how many million years did it take to make the change?  AND HOW IS IT THAT THEY DID NOT STARVE TO DEATH WHEN THEY WERE, SAY, HALF WAY ALONG FROM GROUND-LOVING ANTS TO TREE CLIMBERS AND TREE BUILDERS???  Obviously, the "leaf house" ants WERE THAT WAY FROM THE VERY BEGINNING: no evolution could ever negotiate, gradually, such changes in ant habits! 

            And who taught these non-intelligent little animals to sew leaves together?  And who gave them the acrobatic skill to build an "ant chain" from one leaf to another, and draw distant leaves together, to serve their purposes?  Who first suggested to these ants — if at one time they were accustomed to life on earth, let us say, as ordinary Harvester ants — that they might use their own larvae to make silk threads for them?  And Who taught them, after they got used to the idea that they could use their larvae to make silk threads, how to sew leaves together with these threads? The very asking of these questions shows how preposterous is the idea of "gradual change by slow, evolutionary processes."  To teach an intelligent dog tricks is one thing; to get a non-intelligent ant, bound by "the tyranny of instinct," to make revolutionary changes, is quite another thing.

THE FEROCIOUS "ARMY ANTS" 

            The Army ants live in the tropical climates of Africa, South America and Mexico.  They are large, fierce, expert hunters.  They eat only meat, which they find and kill on regular hunting raids.  They never make a nest, but often when not on the march they will hang together in great masses on trees, like a swarm of bees.  They are nomads, going from place to place.  They are blind and are guided by "feelers" instead of sight.

            "On the march, workers carry the larvae in their jaws.  The queen army ant does not lay her eggs continuously as do queens of other ants.  She lays them in huge batches at regular intervals.  When the queen is swollen with eggs, the army camps.  At this time the larvae of the previous brood make their cocoons.  Within one week the queen may lay 25,000 eggs.  In two or three weeks, when the older brood have all emerged from their cocoons, and the new batch of eggs have hatched into tiny larvae, the colony starts marching again — this time to make vigorous raids for food in all directions.  Every night the entire colony moves to a new location.  Workers carry their young ones while on the march. . . .The queens of army ants never have wings."  (Charles D. Michener).

            They have instincts that enable them to achieve some remarkable things, such as crossing water.  Carveth Wells tells about their spectacular method of crossing water.  He witnessed this scene in the Malay jungle.

            "Rivers do not stop a marching column of army ants; on reaching a river, the main body waits while scouts look for the best place to cross.  The scouts find a bend in the stream, where the current is shunted diagonally across the river-bed to the other side.  Next, the ants form heaps and slowly wriggle themselves into a solid ball, about the size of a coconut.  Then, in some inexplicable manner, enough momentum is obtained to carry the ball of squirming insects down the slope to the water's edge, where it falls in with a splash.

            "Here the ball rolls about, so that an ant may be on top one second and entirely submerged the next. . . .The current keeps the ball rolling, so that each receives only a temporary ducking.  The instant the ball touches the bank on the other side, the ants unscramble, toddle ashore, and continue their march!"  (page 222 "Nature's Parade").

            Because of INSTINCT given by the Creator, the feat becomes believable; but were one forced to believe that they GRADUALLY ACQUIRED this amazing ability, it is too much to give credence to — for they would have died a thousand deaths while learning to cross streams, and never would have developed the proper technique, even in a billion years!  They were originally MADE to do this; such a feat can NOT be acquired gradually.

Dr. T. C. Schneirla's Testimony

            T. C. Schneirla, of the American Museum of Natural History, wrote on THE ARMY ANTS.  It is published in the SMITHSONIAN REPORT FOR 1955 (Publication No 4244). * We quote:

            (1)  Speaking of the Eciton (army) ants, he says (page 391):  "It can be said that there are NO LEADERS in these swarms except in a very temporary and limited sense, and that not in the sense of human leadership; but the swarm at any stage is 'directed' COLLECTIVELY in a complex manner through the activities of all ants participating in the raid."

            This bears out the statement in the Bible, Proverbs 6:6-8:  "Go to the ant. . . consider her ways, and be wise: which HAVING NO GUIDE, OVERSEER OR RULER, provideth her meat in the summer," etc.

            (2)  Dr. Schneirla infers that there has been NO EVOLUTION in the Army ants for the past 65 million years.

            "The Dorylines, one of the eight major subfamilies of ants (of which the army ants are a species). . . . have survived very successfully from early Tertiary times, or at least 65 million years, on the basis of the unique combination of a nomadic behavior with a fully carnivorous way of life."

            * For another interesting article on ARMY ANTS, see the essay by Thomas Belt, on "Army Ants," p. 450, "Green Treasury." 

Other Witnesses say, ANTS ARE NOT EVOLVING

            The noted anthropologist, Loren C. Eiseley, writing in the "Scientific American," flatly states that ants are not evolving.

            "Ants have led their present lives for more than 80 million years, while man's civilization is scarcely more than 7,000 years old. . . . they have changed very little, if at all.  They are one of the small 'immortals.'  They attained their present relatively high biological specialization very long ago and have since been marking time or evolving so slowly that the modifications are extremely minor."

            What a confession for an evolutionist!  We agree:  Ants are NOT evolving — nor have they ever evolved.  They were CREATED as perfectly adapted to their environment as they are now; otherwise they never could have survived.  Another authority says:

            "Insects appeared ages ago, before the first vertebrates, the true fishes, the snakes, the lizards and the birds.  They most certainly have had time to develop along higher lines (but) THEY SEEM TO HAVE REMAINED IN EQUILIBRIUM WITH THEIR ENVIRONMENT and have to a certain extent marked time." (Book of Knowledge). 

Maurice Maeterlinck, noted naturalist says: 

            "The ants are the most abundant of all insects in the Tertiary deposits.  We find them in the Eocene, the most ancient of these deposits. . . .Eleven thousand, seven hundred and eleven specimens contained in the Baltic amber have been examined, as well as hundreds of other specimens found in the Sicilian amber of the middle Miocene.  But here is a most disconcerting fact (i.e., to evolutionists); contrary to expectation, we find that the more ancient ants are NOT more primitive than those found in fossil amber, and that the latter, despite the millions of years which divide them from the ants of today, are almost as fully specialized, almost as civilized.  Many of them, Wheeler tells us, had learned to seek out plant lice (and use them as their 'cows'). . . .Now the rearing of 'cattle'. . . .mark the culminating point of their present civilization.  What then are we to conclude?  Well, if we choose, we may draw very strange conclusions — as, for example, THAT EVOLUTION IS LESS PROVEN, LESS CERTAIN THAN IS GENERALLY ASSERTED, that all the species, with their diverse degrees of civilization, DATE FROM THE SAME MOMENT, and were, as the Bible declares, CREATED ON THE SAME DAY, and consequently, that tradition is nearer to the truth than science." ("The Life of the Ant").

CONTINUE