Bees get a town council meeting buzzing

A while back, I was invited to attend a local town council meeting at which honeybees were to be a topic for discussion. Excuse me? Let me explain.

It seems that a town resident wants to put a couple of hives in her yard as an educational hobby and to produce some honey. And a group of high school students with an ongoing project wants to establish a demonstration hive at their school. Problem: there is a town ordinance against raising honeybees. And the strange thing is that the ordinance lumps the prohibition of beehives with that of raising goats. Go figure. (Sorry, I just couldn’t avoid using that cliché—the situation is just so go-figure-ish).

Before considering the reason for the ordinance, the council heard from a representative of the student group, from the hive-desirous resident and from the state apiarist, all of whom gave eloquent arguments for bee keeping as a hobby and against the ordinance. The apiarist described the habits of honeybees and those of other bee, wasp and hornet species, asserting that honeybees are the safest to have around, as far as the danger from stings is concerned.

Council members asked probing questions and said they would take the matter under consideration, reminding the bee lovers that there are bee haters who are tax-paying citizens as well. And of course the council members pondered over how the ordinance lumped bees with goats. They concluded that it must have been a good idea at the time—a time long before the terms of any of the present members. One member quipped that the whole thing sounded like the plot of a B movie—and that pretty much killed the discussion.

Of course, I learned a lot from attending the session, about bees and apiculture, and about the operation of a suburban town council—and it got me reflecting about all the honeybees and other buzzing hymenopterans that I have annoyed with my camera’s macro lens—without ever being stung.

Today’s photos were taken during the summer of course, when the honeybees and others were busy nectaring the milkweeds and other meadow flowers and pollinating them in the process. Pictured are a honeybee, a carpenter bee (with the black abdomen), which we usually confuse with a bumblebee—and a real yellow bumblebee, which you won’t confuse with anything else, once you’ve seen one, the furry little bugger.

By the way, our domestic honeybee, Apis mellifera, is not native. It is an Old World species, as are all true honeybees. Our species was introduced into the Jamestown Colony in 1622 and has been here ever since. There is so much to know about this very important creature that the best thing I can do is to refer you to good old Wikipedia.

Now one more thing, lest we ever forget. The various species and varieties of honeybees may have—in fact, almost certainly did—diversify from a common bee ancestor. That may be called natural selection or microevolution. But that is not the same as saying they evolved by random, unintelligent processes from “lower” forms. The fantastically complex bodies of insects are preeminent examples of intelligent design. A tremendous amount of information is programmed into their miniscule bodies. Precision flight, a brain that can interpret signals from multi-faceted compound eyes, the precise mechanism of master gene-controlled metamorphosis from larva to adult, not to mention hive-building skill and complex social structure—all reflect non-randomness and purposefulness to the nth degree.

Biblically speaking, believing that a honeybee is the product of anything but divine design—or even failing to give the Divine Designer full credit and honor—puts one in a precarious position, as described in Romans 1:18-25. That position is, of course, under the wrath of God—not a good place to be.

I know, I’ve gotten harsh again, just as in my anti-booze rantings. But truth is truth and we must face it squarely even though it stings. (Ouch—I promised myself I was going to avoid using bee metaphors). Of course we don’t want to stop at the bad news of Romans 1. We must go on to see that the news gets even worse, placing us all under God’s wrath—until we get to the middle of Chapter 3—and then we keep going as the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ unfolds before us—the Good News of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone.

Well, they say that the key to good preaching is to be able to start from anywhere in the Universe and head straight for the Cross. So you will have to forgive me for starting at a small town council meeting and winding up at the Gospel. An elected council may be an effective way to govern a small town, and the honeybee may be a beautiful expression of God’s intelligent design, but the Gospel is the ultimate expression of His unfathomable grace and totally undeserved love for all who believe.

Soli Deo Gloria