HONEY BEE ON STAMPS

M. Tariq khattak

Collecting honey bee is a very interesting, healthy and beneficial hobby. It is known through the study of history that the honey bee is always behaved with reverence. It is known throughout the world. One can find the references about honey bee in books related to Hazrat Dawood and Hazrat Musssa. The reference of honey and honey bee is also scribed in the Bible. If one studies the ancient books he will find some references of this creature.

In Quran the nourishing power of honey is refered with due importance as a diet and cure. It is known that since long humen being started breeding the honey bee. In sanscrit and Chinese word “Ma” and “Hayya” are present for honey. In Egypt almost two thousand B.C the honey bees were collected and bred and Hazrat Yaqoob told his sons to take honey for the king of Egypt. Morever God Almighty had told Hazrat Mussa that Kanan is a country where milk and honey were available. In the old age when people knew the breeding of honey bees, they built safe houses for them. So that they can live and prosper there happily.

Now days the world has entered a civilized era. The honey bee is bred every where and a good type of honey is availed. People fulfill the necessity of sweet by honey for several centuries. Not only honey was used in the daily routine, it was also used in the religious rituals.

The very first book written on the life of honey bee was the “History of Animals”. Asistatus wrote this book about 330 year B.C. After that Philaspas of Asia Minor studied the Characteristics of this creature, and wrote the biography of honey bee. Alas, this book is not available. Philisise, resident of Thasas left home and lived in the jungle for ever. His mission was collection of living beings. He got an opportunity of keen eye on the honey bee. It is also reported with concern that his book disappeared with the passing of time.

Huber a scientist and writer of Gevava have written such remarks that the scientists of this period have endorsed his thoughts. And a Dutch scientist is the first man who dissected the honey bee and opined that the king of honey bees is no more king but be considered a queen. The body of the honey bee consists of i.e., head chest and abdomin. Every part consists of many organs the narration of these parts is very interesting. There are three parts in head i.e., eye, brain and mouth. The eye of the honey bee is immovable. There are 3500 small cells in its eye. It is due to this eye that it can see in the dark Conner of lay. If it had one eye ball, it would have been more difficult for honey bee to see.

The eyes of honey bee work like a telescope. By means of it, it can see the distant objects very clearly. But it cannot see nearby things. It is proved experimentally that the honey bee cannot see the near things. To cave this deficiency God has bestowed her with three extra eyes. Which work as a microscope?

The middle part containing six legs with tiny feet and on the upper part four wings. The horns are erected form the centre of head. Its sides are highly sensitive giving multifarious duties. For example, the horns accelerate the visionary power.

The been move the horns frequently and the horns conduct them to the destination. The eyes are five in number, two bigger one and three smaller one. The chest and abdomen are covered with hair.

The last part-containing sting is called the part of abdomen. Its tongue is a tiny trunk. By the trunk it sucks the sweet juice. The juice goes to the stomach and become its diet, while the remaining diverts in honey. The bee deposits this honey in the hive. The bee fly’s faster than all the flying animals in the world. There are hooks in the lower part of its wings. When the bee fly’s its wings contracts and becomes sterner. In the middle it has very much hair on the stomach. When it sits on the flower it collects yellow Colour of the flower and sticks it to its mouth and hooks of legs and then fly’s towards hive.

God Almighty has bestowed some insects with stings for their safety. There is a very minute needle in the sting. Its shape is like the needle of fishing. There is a small bag at the bank of the sting, which is full of poison. When the bee stings, the needle enter the flesh and the poison in the bag enters into the wound, creates pain and inflammation. The needles are converted in shape therefore when they pass into the hard flesh they cannot return back. Therefore the sting is detached form the body of the bee and consequently such a bee dies very soon.

The social life of the bee is the same in many ways as the life of the other flies. But there are contradictions, for example, when the honey bees think to go to another place, they take the whole gathering with them.

STRUCTURE OF THE HIVE:- The bee makes a very strange house. Seeing its houses a man recalls the blandishment of God Almighty. If you give full attention to the bee hive, you will find that the hive is made of wax and its every compartment is hexagonal. Inside the hive, the worker bees prepare three types of compartments. The compartments made for the worker bees are small. But seems that the compartments made for them are according to their power. It looks that grand compartments are made for royal family children. There are also such compartments, where the children are bred. These are called breeding places. Some compartments are stores where honey and yellow Colour of flower is stored. The queen bee lays egg in each and every compartment. Naturally the hives are hanging with the shrubs and with the branches of the trees. Where the bee work very far from the hands of a man.

In Europe, where the honey bees are bred, the artificial hives are also used. There bees are collected in small boxes which are heated up with the electric bulbs. In this manner the queen bee is created. Where heat is not available in sufficient quantity, their efforts fail. Therefore in England, natural system is used instead of the artificial process.

A group of bees are appointed of prepare wax. These been having in their stomach parts. When they prepare wax. They hang with the hive and prepare a frill while hanging with one another and almost they hang so, about 24 hours and so the wax is prepared. This wax is deposited inside. After that they collectively make the building of the line. These bees are also artists and masons. After excreting the wax, the bees transfer it to the foremost legs and mixing it with the silver, they make the walls. When a bee exhausts its wax, it is replaced by a fresh bee containing wax.

First the walls are prepared, and then hexagonal holes are made in wall to the left and right. It is a strange thing that every cell is of the equal size. It appears that an expert of architecture has prepared these hexagonal cells with minute accuracy. The experts say that if a hive has a longitude of 24 inches and latitude of 20 inches, then there will be 50 thousand compartments in the hive. Moreover, there are lanes and shops inside the line. In which the bees go hither and thither.

TYPES:- Three types of bee are found in the hive:-

THE QUEEN BEE:- Its body is comparatively larger than the other. It has the solitary work to lay eggs. The Germans call this bee, the mother bee. All the other bees respect this bee and obey its command. The queen bee laid about six hundred to eight hundred eggs per day. In abnormal conditions it can also lay one thousand to one thousand two hundred eggs. Its period of laying eggs is almost nine to ten months.

THE WORKER BEES:- The number of worker bees is much more in the hive. Its physical structure is shorter than the queen and male bees. Its trunk is larger. Therefore it has the quality to collect honey. When the worker bees come out of the eggs, then the queen bee put them in the smaller cells. In winter and spring seasons, there is less work to do for the worker bees. Therefore their strength shortens. This is why that these bees have a life span of six to seven months. But in summer seasons, when the days are longer these bees have to bring material from far off places and exert too much vigor. Therefore there power exhausts and they loose their lives in five to six weeks. The ratio of their birth and death goes equal. One can distinguish between the young and elder bee. The color of the younger bee is brown and shining while the color of the elder bee is black.

MALE BEE:- The male bees are comparatively bigger than queen bee and the worker bee. Its color is a bit brown and has fragile hair on its body. It has more hair on the rear portion of its body. Its arms and rear legs are very long. It is due to these legs that it can run very fast. It has larger eyes. The male bee has a distinctive smell. Its trunk is not in position to collect honey. Neither has it had any bag in its body to prepare honey. The male bee goes without any discrimination from one hive to the. Every hive has 500 to 2000 of male bees in it. It is also experienced that when there is no need of the male bees the worker bees expel the male bees out of the hive. If they resist going out, the other bees sting them to death.

When the queen bee has to lay eggs. It penetrates its stomach portion inside the compartment and sticks the eggs to the walls. It has a strange way to lay different types of eggs. First of all it laid the eggs of worker bee. Afterwards the eggs of male bee. At last it lays the eggs of the royal family. Then princess, come out of he eggs are laid in large compartments.

When the queen bee has to lay eggs at that time many bees are present. Some of them have honey with them. The honey is fed to the queen bee off and on. It is only for the reason to retain the vigor and health of the queen bee which exhausts in the period of laying eggs some bees have the duty to go before the queen bee and clear the compartments and diet is stored in this compartment before the birth of the off springs.

While colored larva comes out after four days. The insects go through four stages of life. (1) Eggs (2) Larva (3) Pupa (4) Lamago. The honey bee also under goes these conditions. The larva’s become small insects within three days the nurse gives them a honey made diet and flower fragments they eat to their fill and nourish so. The compartments, which contain larva, has, its month closed with a fragile cover, there the larva stays in the condition of pupa. In this condition the color of insect is white and its parts grow. In the head eyes and horns grow. After these three conditions, the insects become young. The queen bee under goes these three stages within sixteen days and worker bees within twenty-two days, while male bees take 25 or 26 days. Afterwards the nurse bees take care and look after these bees and take here and there on the hive and on the second day the small ones are permitted to fly in the air.

At the end I would like to explain a very important function that the bees render to us besides preparing honey. It is called pollination. Pollination is the process in which the pollen grains of one flower are transferred to another flower through honey bees and other insects. Pollination plays a vital role in the successful cultivation. Its increases the rate of growth and we are driven to the self-sufficiency stage.

Let’s compromise that to become self sufficient in the crops and give shelter to our people from diseases, not only we will plant trees in our country but specially such plants from which bees can collect more and more honey and particles of flowers. We should also pledge for saving the atmosphere from pollution and in gaining this destination, we will recognize this as a religious duty and Quarnic hobbies to expand the collection of honey bees. In many countries of the world, stamps have been printed about the bees. These stamps play a vital role in creating the importance of this health-promoting hobby in people of every age.