The bee's sting, honeycomb geometry, and the order of cranes and storks

The king does have a sting, but he does not use it for self-defense. These are unwritten laws of nature: that those who mount the greatest powers are slow to punish. And among the bees, any that do not follow the example of the king quickly regret their folly, because they die upon the blow of the sting. Let Christians hear this—Christians who have the command to repay no one evil for evil, but to overcome evil with good (Romans 12:17, 21). Imitate the peculiar character of the bee: it harms no one, it destroys no one else's fruit, and yet it builds its combs. For it gathers the wax openly from the flowers, and the honey—the dew-like moisture scattered in the flowers—it draws in with its mouth and pours into the hollows of the combs. At first the honey is liquid; then, ripened by time, it returns to its own proper consistency and sweetness. This bee has received fine and fitting praise from Proverbs, where it is called wise and a worker (Proverbs 6:8)—so industriously does it gather its food (whose labors, it says, kings and common people alike consume for their health), and so wisely does it craft its storehouses of honey. For it stretches the wax into a thin membrane and builds the hollows close together and continuous with one another, so that the density of the tiny cells bound to each other becomes a support for the whole. Each little cell holds to the next, separated from it by a thin dividing wall and at the same time joined to it. Then these tubes are built upon one another in two and three stories. The bee has been careful not to make one hollow running straight through, so that the liquid does not escape to the outside under its own weight. Learn how the discoveries of geometry are the by-work of the most wise bee. All the tubes of the combs are hexagonal and equal-sided, and they do not lie directly on top of one another, so that the bottoms do not suffer strain when fitted onto empty gaps. Rather, the angles of the hexagons below serve as a base and support for those above, so that they safely hold up the weights above them, and the liquid is contained separately in each hollow.

How could I go through for you in detail all the distinctive traits in the lives of birds? How the cranes take up the night watches in turn: some sleep, while others circle around and provide them with complete safety in their sleep; then, when the time of the watch is fulfilled, the one that has called out turns to sleep, and the one that takes over the succession gives back in turn the safety it received. You will see this same good order in their flight. For at different times a different crane takes up the lead, and after guiding the flight for a fixed time, it moves to the rear and hands over the leadership of the way to the one behind it. The behavior of the storks is not far from rational understanding: they all arrive in these regions at one and the same season, and they all depart at one and the same signal. Our crows escort them and accompany them, providing, it seems to me, a kind of alliance against hostile birds. The proof is, first, that no crow appears at all during that season, and second, that when they return with wounds, they carry clear signs of the battle fought and the defense given.