I Bee-lieve! – My Father's World

“Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn’t be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn’t know it so it goes on flying anyway.” Mary Kay Ash

It’s been a little longer than usual between posts, but, for good and happy reasons, my usual routine was disrupted for a while. After our nation’s birthday, I celebrated my own birthday and my husband was on vacation! But now it’s finally time for a new post, so I hope you enjoy it!

Have you ever watched bumblebees for any length of time? They do seem to just “bumble” around from flower to flower with their bulky, heavy bodies and their dainty wings, which don’t appear as if they could carry those bodies any distance at all. But it doesn’t really matter what we think about the flight of a bumblebee, does it? The bee flies wherever it wants and whenever it wants, with no regard to our thoughts. For many years now, we have said things similar to the quote above, probably because of calculations made by someone in the 1930s, which only considered the surface area of the bee’s wings and the weight of the bee. (Sources vary on who was truly responsible for the idea that bees shouldn’t be able to fly.)

Bumblebees buzz because of the vibration of their flight muscles – not because they flap their wings.

Whoever the real myth propagator was just didn’t consider some important facts about bees – they don’t fly like airplanes and they have flexible wings. At the time, there was also a misconception about how insects in general flapped their wings. It was thought that they flapped their wings up and down, when, in fact, they move them back and forth. Bumblebees don’t defy the laws of physics when they fly, but the physics behind their flight is even more complicated than the physics behind the flight of an airplane. But I’ll try to simplify both!

Bumblebees don’t store large amounts of honey in their nests – just enough for a few days.

Basically, a plane needs to overcome the forces of weight and drag in order to fly. A streamlined shape helps reduce drag, and a plane’s engines create thrust, another force, to overcome the drag. A plane can achieve very fast speeds at takeoff, which a bee cannot do, and a plane’s wings have a large enough wingspan that they don’t need to flap. Also, a plane’s wing is designed so that air has to travel faster across the top of the wing, creating a lower air pressure above the wing and allowing for the lift that offsets the weight of the plane. So how does a bumblebee overcome weight and drag? Remember that the bees flap their wings back and forth (not up and down), and they can do so at speeds around 200 flaps per second! They also move their wings in a partial spin, forming pockets of low air pressure. As a result, small eddies, or mini hurricanes, develop above the bees’ wings and give them the lift needed to fly. Super simple, right??!

Bumblebees prefer blue or violet flowers. (But, of course, they will eat from many different kinds of flowers of many different colors.)

You may be thinking “Who cares?” right about now. You didn’t need me to expound to you the physics of bumblebee flight in order to believe that bumblebees can fly. Of course you believe that a bumblebee can fly! All you have to do is take a walk outside and observe one buzzing around and flitting from flower to flower or doing a fly by of your head. But do you believe that God is responsible for this amazing feat of flight? I believe that He is! Isn’t it incredible that He designed those clumsy looking bumblebees (and other insects as well) to create mini hurricanes everywhere they go?

A bumblebee’s stinger lacks barbs, so it can sting repeatedly without injuring itself. Only worker bees and the queen can sting.

One definition of the word “believe” is “to accept, or regard, (something) as true.” It’s easy to believe that a bumblebee can fly, but it’s not as easy for some to believe that God created and designed it to fly. Some do not believe in the existence of God at all. But I believe! I believe that God created this marvelous world and that He created us in His (and the Son’s) image (Genesis 1). I believe that the Bible is God’s inspired word. “All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17) I believe that God gave His only Son to die for our sins. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all.” (Romans 8:32a) I believe that Christ died and rose from the dead and ascended back into Heaven. “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4) “And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” (Acts 1:9) I believe that Christ will return, judgment will occur, and each will receive his reward. “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11b) “Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” (Matthew 25:32)

For any Harry Potter fans, an old name for bumblebee is “dumbledore.”

But, of course, whether I believe or not doesn’t change the reality of God’s truth. Just like believing that the bumblebee shouldn’t be able to fly doesn’t change the fact that it can fly – and fly very well! But whether I believe or not DOES change the reality of my eternity. And is believing enough? I will answer that in another post! For now, I leave you with one final Bible verse and a suggestion to listen to the beautiful lyrics of Alton H. Howard’s hymn “I Believe in Jesus.” “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe – and shudder!” (James 2:19)