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The insect that heals

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It cannot be strange to regular reciters of the Qur’an that there are 114 chapters in that sacred book. Out of these, six chapters are dedicated to the animal kingdom, three of which are specifically dedicated to insects. They are chapters 16, 27 and 29 which are dedicated to ‘The BEE’, ‘The ANT’ and ‘The SPIDER’ respectively.

Each of these chapters is particularly symbolic of the purpose to which it is dedicated. But it takes only those who can reason to comprehend them. However, our immediate concern here is the insect called ‘BEE’ about which Qur’an 16, verse 68 quoted in this column last week is explicit thus:

“And your Lord revealed to the bee (saying): Build your homes in the mountains, in the trees and in the hives which men shall make for you. Feed on every kind of fruit and follow the trodden path of your Lord’. “From its belly comes forth a fluid of many hues as healing (fluid) for mankind. Surely in this, there is a sign for those who can reason….”

Honey is like a message. No one can gain access to a message except through the messenger. And the messenger, in this case, is the bee. To appreciate the value of honey and other bee products, it is necessary to know something about the life of the bees.

Bees are social insects living a communal life under an organised and disciplined government. Bees have male and female genders. Their males are called drones. Their females are known as workers. They all live together in an abode called hive. Such hive may be wild or man-made. Though people had been harvesting honey for thousands of years, it was not until 1851 that the idea of a definite man-made hive came into existence. In that year, an America apiarist, Lorenzo Lorrain Langstroth, discovered the principle of ‘bee space’ and designed a man-made hive that came to be named after him (Langstroth). According to his discovery, bees leave spaces of about 0.6 cm (about 0.23 inches) between wax combs. Thus, Langstroth’s discovery made it possible to remove individual frames from a beehive and to harvest honey and wax without destroying the colony. It also became possible to control diseases in the hive and to maintain a larger number of colonies. (A colony is a hive effectively occupied by bees while an apiary is a place where hives are sited and kept by an apiarist).

Man-made hives are of three types. These are Langstroth, Kenyan top bar and Tanzanian top bar. Kenyan and Tanzanian top bars are similar in shape and outlook. The one was designed in Kenya while the other was designed in Tanzania in the 1950s and 1962 early 1960s. Each of the Kenyan and Tanzanian hives can contain an average of 20 litres of honey. Langstroth on the other hand can contain as much as between 38 and 40 litres because of its double chamber capacity. To get the bees to occupy a hive, what apiarists do is to bate such hives. And to bate the hive, some pure, genuine honey is added to a piece of beeswax and put at the entrance of the hive. Once this is done, the bees will come in their hundreds to colonise the hive. Thus, it becomes a colony.

Bees are governed by a female monarch called ‘the Queen’. To choose a Queen, a group of kingmakers in the hive meet to select some fertilised eggs shortly before those eggs are hatched and give them royal incubation. When they are hatched and become princesses, they are then fed with a special food called Royal Jelly to accelerate their growth and facilitate their longevity. After about 16 weeks, one of them is chosen and made the Queen while the rest are either taken out into new hives as Queens or left altogether to slug it out among themselves in a battle of survival. In such a situation, whichever of them emerges as overall winner retains the crown as the Queen of that particular hive. The other fertilised eggs not specially selected for the same purpose are left to grow naturally until they become worker bees.

Drones are the male bees produced from unfertilised eggs. They neither sting nor work. They are idle in the hive except for mating with an emerging queen which they do only once in a lifetime. As soon as they finish mating, the drones fall down and die as they have completed their destined duty. The queen also mates only once in a lifetime but she does not die as a result. Drones are very few in any hive since the unfertilised eggs that produce them are scantily laid by the Queen. They constitute less than one per cent of the hive population. The other drones which do not participate in mating only loiter around the hive and feed freely from the labour of the workers. Their population is invariably determined by the Queen which lays very few big and unfertilised eggs from which the drones are produced. The worker bees are produced from smaller but fertilised eggs. Only one Queen can be found in a hive at any given time. And she has no deputy. If two or more Queens should meet in the same hive, they will engage in a fight of survival killing one another until only one (the strongest) is left to reign.

By the natural culture of the bees, the Queen neither mates inside her own hive nor mated by the drones from the same hive. This is similar to the principle of endogamy (marriage within the same family) which is culturally prohibited in most African clans. When it is time for the Queen bee to mate, she produces a glandular secretion with which she sends out a powerful pheromone into the air to alert the drones in other hives that she is ready for mating. A meeting is then arranged by the worker bees, between her and some interested drones, to mate with the Queen. And the mating is done in the air.

To breed new bees, the Queen bee lays unfertilised eggs in the larger chambers of the bee comb while she lays fertilised ones in the small chambers of the comb. The eggs in the larger chambers are meant for the production of the drones while those in the smaller chambers are meant for the production of the workers. This is because the drones are naturally bigger in size than the workers. Both chambers are expertly designed in the honeycomb by the worker bees for the purpose of breeding. One of the mysteries of the beehives is the building of the honeycomb by the bees. Researchers in the field of apitherapy know that the bees use wax to build honeycomb but they are still puzzled by the natural skill with which those tiny insects do it. An attempt by those researchers to manufacture similar honeycomb as a means of assisting the bees in reducing their workload has proved abortive as the bees have shunned such artificial comb. Honeycomb is a mass of hexagonal cells built by the honeybees in their nest to contain their larvae and store honey and pollen.

Worker bees are classified into groups for the purpose of carrying out specific duties assigned to them. Some go out every morning to scout for flower nectars with which to produce honey. Some are assigned to the duty of picking resin with which to produce propolis. Some others are charged with fetching water to be used in the hive. All of them travel out in groups of hundreds into the wild vegetations or plantations every morning as a matter of duty. For carrying out such duties, they are called foragers.

Among the other multitude others remaining in or around the hive, some are responsible for guarding the hive against any foreign attack or aggression. They are the security officers. Some are assigned to carrying out the conversion to honey of the flower nectars brought into the hive by the foragers. Those are the corporate cooks in the hive. Some engage permanently in fanning the interior of the hive with their tiny wings to reduce the heat and neutralise the humidity therein. Those are the ventilators. Some specialise in converting to propolis the resin brought by the foragers. Those are the pharmacists or apothecaries. Some are assigned to the Queen’s kitchen as special cooks and prepare royal jelly for the Queen which is the latter’s exclusive food. Those are the Queen’s royal chefs. Some are kept at the entrance of the hive for monitoring the environment and for passing any gathered information to the busy workers. Those are the informants. Some are put in charge of nursing the young bees into adults. They are the foster mothers. Some are assigned to the building and maintenance of the honeycomb. Those are the colony architects and builders. Some are assigned to sterilising the interior of the hive with propolis and to ceiling any leakages therein as well as to embalming any predators that stray into the hive after such predators might have been stung to death to prevent any outbreak of epidemic in the hive. Those are the sanitary inspectors. All of these duties are carried out by the female bees called worker bees.

In the performance of their duties, some foragers do alert others about the discovery of sources of raw materials like nectar and pollen in the visited vegetations by doing a “waggle” dance, which explains the direction and distance of those raw materials. If the source is within the range of 100 meters from the hive, the bees dance in a circular shape. If it is further away than 100 meters, they dance in figure 8 shape. Worker bees, by their nature, do travel very far in search of water or raw materials needed to carry out their assigned duties in the hive. And they follow the principle of ‘esprit de corps’ in carrying out such duties.

This great division of labour is a daily routine which enables perfection to be attained in the hive. And all these activities are centrally co-ordinated by the Queen bee from her palatial chamber. The Queen bee herself is about three times bigger in size than the worker bee. She lays an average of about 2,000 eggs per day. And she lives about 40 times longer than those other bees because of the exclusive diet of Royal Jelly which she takes every day. The average lifespan of an ordinary bee is six weeks. That of the Queen bee is two and a half years but she can live for as long as six years depending on the conduciveness of her royal environment.

 

When the Queen bee becomes old or weak and can no longer lay enough eggs (of between 1,500 and 2,000 per day) with which to sustain the population of the hive, the kingmakers in the hive meet and decide to depose her by jointly stinging her to death. Then, she is replaced with a new, vibrant Queen.

The drones (male bees) cannot sting because they are naturally not endowed to do that by virtue of the infertile eggs from which they are produced. Stinging is part of the duties of the worker bees. And each of them can sting only once in a lifetime. No bee can sting twice. That is why they move in groups when they are going for attack on an enemy. Stinging bees are like suicide bombers. They die in less than 30 minutes after they had stung. However, by virtue of her position and the special food she eats, the Queen can sting many times without any fear of death.

It must be noted that the bees work and produce honey and other products for themselves and not for human consumption. Honey is the food of the bees. They work during the dry season and never in the rainy season because they cannot cope with the wind and storm which often accompany rains. Thus, during the rainy season, they concentrate on taking care of the Queen and on nursing of the younger bees. Therefore, the food which they had stored during the dry season is what they consume during the raining season. It takes an average bee about 21 days to grow into an adult from the egg status while it takes the Queen about 16 day to develop from the egg status to the royal status of a Queen.

Bees have as much friendly stinging as they have of hostile stinging. Their friendly stinging is for healing purposes. Their hostile stinging is like missiles reserved for attack on enemies. The natural sac in which their venom is kept at the tail end of their abdomen is called ‘ovipositor’. Bees also have three ways of communicating among themselves. These are through buzzing by the collective clapping of their wings; through pheromone released by the Queen and through certain dancing styles. They have eight of such dancing styles each with comprehensible connotation. The number of honey bees inhabiting a hive at a time may range from 10,000 to 100,000 depending on the size of the hive and its proximity to the needed raw materials.

The Queen bee mates with about six to eight drones, only once in a lifetime. And this is done over a period of two to seven days. And she must fly to at least a height of 20 metres in the air before mating. This is to maintain royal privacy and avoid unnecessary disturbance. There are about 20,000 species of bees in the world. But the most prominent ones in relation to human life are seven. These are Bumble Bees; Carpenter Bees; Honey Bees; Killer Bees; Ground Bees and Yellow Jackets Bees. Some worker bees are stingless. But generally, the world of bees is a wonderful one. It takes those who know it to appreciate its value. Without bees, there will be neither crops nor farmers. No amount of narration here can expose all about the communal life of the bees. Their story is inexhaustible.

 

Identifying genuine honey

Following the publication of an article in this column last Friday entitled ‘The Prophet’s Medicine’, many readers of this column (not less than 401, as of last Tuesday when this piece was being put together), have called yours sincerely or sent messages wanting to know how genuine honey can be recognised. This column has no choice but to oblige since readers, like customers, are kings and queens.

A genuine honey can be recognized in two simple ways thus:

(1) By dropping a little quantity of honey in a transparent glass of water. It should ordinarily go straight to the bottom of the water and stay there without mixing with the water. If it mixes, consider it as either debased or not genuine.

(2) By dropping a little quantity of honey on a small portion of sand (not soil). It should ordinarily stay on top of such sand without sinking. If it sinks then it is not genuine. There are other ways by which genuine honey is tested. But those two ways should suffice for now. The idea that ants do not go near a genuine honey has no basis. Ants will go for anything sweet anywhere. The only reason why ants are careful about honey is its gummy nature. Ants have six legs. If they are not careful about their approach to honey they may get trapped in it. Thus, when the ants want to consume honey, they put only two legs forward and retain the other four backwards to enable escape getting trapped in gummy honey.

Besides, consummation of honey by human beings has rules and regulations. For instance honey should not be put in any hot substance like tea or pap. Such substance should be allowed to cool down to a warm level before honey can be added to it. Otherwise, one will merely be consuming the fructose in honey and not the vital properties like enzymes in it which are of high benefit to the body system.

Finally, looking at the communal life of the bees as well as the style of government in the beehive, no sensible person will disagree with an Arab poet who once coined a couplet part of which reads thus:

“…..And in every creature, there is a natural sign confirming not only the true existence of Allah but also His indisputable oneness”. God bless the readers of ‘THE MESSAGE’.

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Posted in Nigerian Newspapers. A DisNaija.Com network.

Source: The Nation Newspaper

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This Day

Military, Police Ring Abuja to Forestall Boko Haram Attack

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•Deploy more personnel as army chief vows to wipe out terror group
•Security beefed up at N’Assembly

Deji Elumoye and Kingsley Nwezeh in Abuja

Abuja, Nigeria’s seat of power, is under a massive security cordon following threats of attacks by insurgents and the increasing wave of banditry in the contiguous states of Kaduna, Kogi, Nasarawa and Niger States, THISDAY’s investigation has revealed.

There has been a wave of kidnappings in the outskirts of the federal capital, notably Pegi, Tuganmaje and Kuje among others, which the police have battled in recent times.

The security situation in and around the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) was heightened by the pronouncement of the Niger State Governor, Mr. Sani Bello, that Boko Haram fighters who he said sacked 50 villages in the state and hoisted the terror group’s flag, were about two hours drive away from the FCT.

Security has also been beefed up at the National Assembly as operatives, yesterday, thoroughly screened every vehicle approaching the National Assembly complex in Abuja.

The deteriorating security situation nationwide prompted the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Uche Secondus, to warn that the 2023 general election may not hold, demanding the declaration of a state of emergency as well as the convocation of a national conference.
However, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru, yesterday restated the Nigerian Army’s determination to annihilate Boko Haram.

But the Governor of Katsina State, Hon. Bello Masari, cautioned against declaring a state of emergency, saying doing so isn’t the solution to combat the security challenges facing the country.
The security of the nation’s airports was also in focus yesterday as the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) said there was no threat to them.

THISDAY’s investigations showed increased presence of troops, police, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) personnel and intelligence operatives at the three strategic entrances to the city notably, Keffi, Zuba and Gwagwalada.

More checkpoints were also mounted around Gwagwalada and Keffi.
THISDAY also observed increased intelligence deployment at the entrance and the borders of FCT with contiguous states.

Beyond the borders, there were more deployments and police patrols inside the city and increased intelligence deployments as well.
Security sources told THISDAY: “There are deployments here and there but they are routine. Alertness is key to a secure environment.”

It was also learnt that security agencies were involved in frenzied meetings throughout yesterday.
The meetings, coordinated by the office of the Chief of Defence Staff under the new joint operational strategy of the armed forces, were aimed at coordinating a joint response to possible threats of attack to the FCT.

“I understand the security teams have been meeting for some days now and if you look around you, you will notice that there are increasing patrols and numbers of security personnel. The threats are not been taken lightly,” a source said.

National Assembly workers, lawmakers and visitors also had a harrowing experience accessing the legislative complex due to heightened security in the area.
Security operatives thoroughly screened every vehicle approaching the National Assembly complex in Abuja, impeding both human and vehicular traffic.

The Sergeant-at-arm of the National Assembly and other security agencies supervised the operations, leading to huge traffic build-up inside the complex.

Legislative staff, visitors and lawmakers were seen patiently waiting for their cars to be searched so that they could go ahead with the business of the day.
Some staff and visitors at some point got tired of waiting and were seen alighting from their cars to trek from the gate to the complex.

Meanwhile, the ONSA has said there is no threat to the nation’s airports.
A statement by the Head of Strategic Communication, Mr. Zachari Usman, said the reports of threats to the airports were an internal correspondence of security threat assessment misconstrued as security threat to the airports.

PDP Demands State of Emergency

In a related development, the PDP National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, yesterday demanded the declaration of a state of emergency, warning that the 2023 general election might not hold if the federal government failed to tackle insecurity.

He called on the federal government to summon a national conference to address the spike in insecurity.
Secondus added that the national caucus of the party will meet today to discuss the state of the nation.

Addressing members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) in Abuja, Secondus said: “We are worried Abuja is not even safe. It is no longer politics. We got alert of plots to bomb and burn down our airports.

“We urge the federal government to declare a national state of emergency in security. There is the need to call a national conference to discuss the insecurity in the country.

“There may not be any election in 2023 in Nigeria due to insecurity. This government must listen to the people. The Buhari government should call a national confab to discuss security and state of the nation. It is no longer politics. This time we are not playing politics. Let’s keep politics aside and move the nation forward.”
He said the country had been grounded, regretting that there had been no matching response from the federal government.

Secondus said in the past, terrorism in the North was confined to the North-east, but with the report of Boko Haram occupying villages in Niger State, terrorism had spread to the North-central
“Herdsmen are also menacing in the West; gunmen causing havoc in the East; and the militants in the South; all killing, looting, raping, maiming and burning down homes. The situation is bad; Nigerians all over are living in fear,” he said.

The Senate Minority Leader, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, said the problem of Nigeria was outside of the PDP headquarters, while pledging the support of the Senate to the declaration of state of emergency in security.

Abaribe said he deliberately decided not to speak on the floor of the Senate but to allow the APC senators to speak so as to avoid being accused of giving a partisan colouration to the issue of insecurity.

He stated that only electoral reforms would give victory to the opposition party in the 2023 general election and ensure a democratic defeat of the APC-led federal government.
Also, the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Hon. Ndudi Elumelu, commended the NEC and the PDP leadership for their collective efforts at resolving the House leadership crisis.

The NEC meeting adopted the position of Secondus, calling on the federal government to convoke a national conference to discuss the state of insecurity in the country, according to a communiqué read by the National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan.

Army Chief Vows to Wipe Out Boko Haram

The army yesterday reiterated its commitment to wipe out Boko Haram.
Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt. Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru, told reporters in Maiduguri, Borno State that Boko Haram had been defeated in many encounters and would continue to be defeated until it’s annihilated from Nigeria.

“We will take on Boko Haram decisively, and we are committed to the focus of the operations, which is the total annihilation of Boko Haram from Nigeria,” he said.

The COAS, who was visiting the headquarters of Operation Lafiya Dole in Maiduguri for the fifth time since his appointment four months ago, said the visit was to boost the morale of the troops, reassure them and listen to any issues affecting them.

Earlier, the Theatre Commander of Operation Lafiya Dole, Maj. Gen. Farouq Yahaya, lauded the visit, which he said had continued to boost the morale of the troops.
“We are honoured, we are grateful, we are encouraged by those visits. You provided us guidance, logistics and other things we required. We are most grateful for those visits,” Yahaya said.

State of Emergency Won’t Solve Security Challenges, Says Masari

Katsina State Governor, Hon. Aminu Masari, has, however, said declaration of a state of emergency won’t solve the security challenges facing the nation.
Masari, who spoke yesterday with journalists after meeting with the Chief of Staff to the President, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari at the State House, Abuja stated that he was against the recent call by the House of Representatives for the declaration of a state of emergency in the security sector as it would not solve the problem.
According to him, declaring a state of emergency will not achieve the desired effect as the security structure and personnel to be used to execute the emergency are already overstretched in a bid to safeguard lives and property.

Sourced From: THISDAYLIVE

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Tribune

Nigeria records 55 new COVID-19 infections, total now 165,110

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Tribune Online
Nigeria records 55 new COVID-19 infections, total now 165,110

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has recorded 62 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 165,110. The NCDC disclosed this on its official Twitter handle on Friday. “55 new cases of #COVID19Nigeria; Lagos-21, Yobe-19, Ogun-6, Akwa Ibom-3, Kaduna-2, Plateau-2, FCT-1, Rivers-1.” YOU SHOULD NOT MISS THESE HEADLINES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE COVID-19: Nigeria Recorded […]

Nigeria records 55 new COVID-19 infections, total now 165,110
Tribune Online

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Vanguard

Attacks on S’East: We must explore all options of negotiation — Stakeholders urge Igbo

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By Olasunkanmi Akoni

The people of the South East region have been urged to explore the power of negotiation and mutual settlement in the face of ongoing killings and security challenges in the zone because the east can not afford another war at present.

Stakeholders from the South-East geo-political zone made the remark on Thursday, at the unveiling of the book, “Igbo, 50 years after Biafra,” written by Special Adviser to Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Drainage Services, Joe Igbokwe, held at Ikeja G.R.A.

Speaking at the unveiling of the book, the chairman of the occasion, Mr. Cutis Adigba,
urged the people of the South-East to learn to build bridges across the country, so that they can realise their ambition of producing the next president of Nigeria.

Adigba urged leaders from the zone to discourage the move and agitation by some youths in the South East to go to war and secede out of Nigeria.

Also read: Banditry: Disregard viral video, Niger State gov’t urges residents

He said that Igbo have always found it difficult to rule Nigeria because they refused to build bridges across the six geo-political zones that made up Nigeria.

While describing the agitation as uncalled for, Adigba noted that after two decades that Nigeria returned to civil rule, the Igbo has predominantly identified with only one political party.

He maintained that remaining in one party can not advance the cause of the people of South East and cannot make them realise their objective of producing an Igbo man as president.

He maintained that the publisher of the book, Igbokwe played politics outside his state, so that the Igbo race can be integrated with one another race.

Adigba said the failure of the Igbo to reintegrate with other ethnic nationalities politically was responsible for the retrogression of the race in Nigerian politics.

Igbokwe, also addressing guests on the occasion, maintained that the Igbo are not advancing politically because they refused to be integrated into National politics, lamenting that, despite their success in business, they are not successful in playing politics at the national level.

Corroborating Dimgba, Igbokwe noted that there was the need for the Igbo people to stand up and build bridges so that their objective of producing the next president of Nigeria could be realised.

According to him: “I have decided to raise my voice, I hope my people will hear me while trying to quell the effect of the war, our people are spoiling for another war, mayhem is being unleashed in Igbo land, and there is palpable fear.

“Those who could speak have lost their voice, mindful of the consequences of their actions, I am calling on all Igbo leaders to speak up because all actions carry consequences, consequences of the silence will be too dastardly to sustain.

“Those silently supporting the wild wind should be careful or else they hand over to their children,” he said.

Igbokwe urged those spoiling for war to jettison their plan and embrace dialogue, urging them to learn from the South West region that despite the challenges faced after the annulment of the June 12, 1993, election, they did not go to war, and the region had the opportunity of producing two of her sons for presidential position in 1999.

“You have to build bridges to become president of Nigeria, but it is unfortunate the Igbo are burning bridges.”

Speaking at the event, Chief Uche Dimgba who is the coordinator of Igbo in All Progressives Congress, APC in Lagos, described Igbokwe as “a Frank, fearless and reliable leader, who based his views on issues and stand by his opinions, and we the Igbo have confidence in him and believe he can lead us aright.”

“He is a leader we Igbo believe in and we will follow him. If he can serve all the governors produced in Lagos State since 1999, he is a better man to follow because he possesses all the experience that can be of benefit to Igbo both at home and in the diaspora.”

Vanguard News Nigeria 

The post Attacks on S’East: We must explore all options of negotiation — Stakeholders urge Igbo appeared first on Vanguard News.

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Premium Times

Insecurity: Lagos bans occupation of abandoned buildings

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The government said that no worker should stay back beyond 6:00 p.m. within premises of buildings undergoing construction.

The post Insecurity: Lagos bans occupation of abandoned buildings appeared first on Premium Times Nigeria.

Sourced From: Premium Times Nigeria

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