The Bible mentions honey 61 times and it mentions bees 7 times. The Lord promises people they can dwell in the land of milk and honey, which sounds like a wonderful thing.
Archaeologists have found written records of honey several thousands of years old. They've also actually found jars of honey in Egypt that were 3,000 years old and they ate some. They said the 3,000-year-old honey was as fresh and delicious as new honey. Apparently honey is the only food in the world that never spoils.
I love honey but I'm terrified of bees. Bees can fly 20 mph. If I hear a bee buzzing, I can run 30 mph.
Bees only live 30 to 60 days, but a queen bee can live 5 to 7 years and lay 20,000 eggs a day. That means one queen bee can lay over 30 million eggs. There are 20,000 kinds of bees, but only one bee makes honey-the honeybee.
It seems like God put a lot of effort into creating bees so we could have honey. There are millions of insects, but I think bees are the only ones who contribute anything to mankind.
Bears love honey. Since bees like to build hives in hollow trees, it is easy for a bear to find the hive and pull the tree apart. Bears don't just like the honey; they eat the larvae and the bees and will completely destroy a hive.
I have a friend who is a beekeeper. He is a minister and has a dozen hives. He shares the honey with the people in his church. He wears a special suit and hood when he removes the honeycombs, and he moves very slowly so he doesn't excite the bees. He says he's never been stung.
My friend offered to let me wear a special suit and hood and help him remove the combs but I refused. I knew that even with the suit and helmet, I would panic and be screaming and running around in circles, flailing my arms like windmills and rolling on the grass. I have a plastic bottle shaped like a bear on my kitchen counter that is filled with honey; that is good enough for me.
There are over 400,000 kinds of flowers, 60,000 varieties of trees and over 8 million kinds of animals on earth.
God has given us abundance of everything. He could have made ten kinds of flowers, and as humans, we'd have never known the difference. But he gave us an abundance of everything. Our cups runneth over. There are flowers and trees and animals and birds that haven't even been discovered yet.
I've heard that 65 percent of the earth has never been explored. No human foot has ever stepped on 65 percent of the earth. It's hard to believe when you think millions of people have lived here for thousands of years, but when you think of the Arctic and Antarctic, the vast deserts, the jungles and the mountains that have never been climbed.
Scientists estimate that 90 percent of species are still undiscovered. The Antarctica is 5.4 million square miles, and only a handful of Scientists have explored the tiniest corner of it. Hundreds, if not thousands, of mountains have never been climbed. The Sahara is over 5.4 million square miles with only a few villages, the Amazon Jungle is over 2.7 million square miles and 95 percent of the ocean has never been explored or mapped.
We haven't begun to explore our planet. Perhaps our grandchildren or great grandchildren will explore and discover things we can't even imagine.
Is it possible God created bees several thousand years ago so we could have honey on our toast? It's possible.
Crying Wind is the author of Crying Wind and My Searching Heart, When the Stars Danced, and Thunder in Our Hearts, Lightning in Our Veins.
