Cooked Wasps

Psalm 82:3
“Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.”

Domesticated honeybees in China are preyed upon by a native wasp. A single wasp can wipe out a nest of 6,000 bees before carrying off the larvae to feed its own young. The wasp does this by stationing itself at the entrance to the nest and killing the guards one by one as they come out to defend the hive.

However, the Chinese honeybees are not defenseless. If enough of them can get to a wasp, they will literally coat the wasp. Research shows that they are doing something even more effective than stinging it. They are cooking the wasp to death. Bees generate heat by shivering their flight muscles. Both European and Chinese honeybees use this strategy to heat their nest when it gets cold. Researchers found that a wasp, fully encased in honeybees, will be heated to 113 degrees F in five minutes, enough to kill the wasp. European and Asian honeybees can stand temperatures over 120 degrees. However, the Asian bees must muster half again as many bees to cook the wasp.

In God’s foreknowledge, He knew that man’s eventual sin would affect the entire creation. So He gave the creatures of His creation the ability to defend themselves. Likewise, He protects us from sin, death and the devil through the forgiveness of sins that is ours through Jesus Christ.

Prayer:
Father, I thank You for Your protection from sin in Jesus Christ. Help me to protect the weak. Amen.

Notes:
Science News, 9/24/05, p. 197, S. Milius, “Balls of Fire.” Photo: Eastern honeybee. Courtesy of Charles Lam. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.