Sabbath Keeping Bees in Brazil?

I heard about it on a NEWSTART health Program Lecture. Anyway, do you know Dr. Sang Lee? He goes to Brazil often as he has good friends there. He talks about these bees in his health lectures. Apparently these bees live in remote areas.

They are stingless. Bee keepers keeps them in the forest in stumps where they close both ends with clay. Anyway, those who are familiar keeping these bees knows that they don't work on Sabbath. The bees stay in the hives and rest.

Do they have worship services?

Some keep Sabbath, and some keep Sunday. Seems fickle to me. The Sunday-keeping ones probably were misled by spurious arguments.

These sorts of arguments have been going on for millennia. The Catholics used all sorts of arguments like these to "prove" that Sunday should be kept. Rosangela already alluded to this. There's scores of these "legends," as Rosangela referred to it (a nice choice of words).

In order to show that bees were really keeping the Sabbath, a test would need to be done to show that their behavior was not random. If we postulate that bees will "take off" approximately one day in seven, how many weeks of observation would it take to establish that they are actually "keeping" the Sabbath, and not sometimes the Sabbath or some other day? This is a statistics question that I'm not inclined to try to solve, but I'm sure it would take a minimum of several months. One would need to observe the bees faithfully for the whole day, to make sure they weren't "cheating" and verify that they actually did "work" every non-Sabbath day, and only "rested" on Sabbaths.

Did Dr.Lee provide the names of the naturalists who have observed the bee's rest habits?

Would apiarists be the word you are looking for?

Our basis for the Sabbath should be based solely on the Bible rather than on a because the bees are keeping it.

Before Sin came into this world, all creation was in harmony with their Creator, and all were keeping the sabbath without knowing that they should keep the sabbath, and without knowing it was part of God's law.

I'm sorry, I guess I don't recall that. Where do you find it?

while we are not to put our animals to work as we would any other day, my observations on this ranch is that they do the same things on the sabbath as they do any other day.

the birds and bees and other wild animals also do the same things every day regardless of what day it it.

they all hunt food.

My sheeps don't hunt for food, they just take a step and eat.

Do we need to have an extensive Scientific study before we can talk about this phenomena on this forum?

What is the scientific name of these bees? Perhaps that would yield more results.

My sheeps don't hunt for food, they just take a step and eat.

God preserve this unique phenomena for our growth, so we can pondered on it and be blessed in return.

perhaps this is the problem in understanding. somehow you connected sheep with the last sentence instead of the sentence that came before the last sentence.

My sheeps don't hunt for food, they just take a step and eat. And then lie down to chew their cud. However, it is true that the farm animals and a great majority of animals we observe today there's not that much differences from any other day. But we shouldn't forget we are living with 6000 years of degenerative and subjection to sin. Should we assume that's how it is going to be in the new earth or in heaven also? Are we to assume that animals can't keep the sabbath?

aside from that, you have brought a few topics here that i get the distinct impression one is to accept without question or reservation, regardless of the evidence to the contrary, or how one reads that evidence. if not believed i have seen a very unnerving judgmental position taken.

that spirit has forced millions for centuries to accept false beliefs and will be used to force sabbath keepers to keep sunday.

my bible is insistent that i study Christ and Him crucified for my salvation. it does not say i have to accept spurious beliefs of others.

Elle: God preserve this unique phenomena for our growth, so we can pondered on it and be blessed in return.

Theresa : what "growth" might that be? it seems to me that a more convincing fact would be if all creatures, domestic or wild, "rested" on the sabbath and were miraculously cared for that one day, than bees that the vast majority of people will never know about. but it seems that God wants us to accept the sabbath because we love Him and has no intention of forcing anyone, in any form, to accept it for any other reason.

and our "sheeps", goats, cows, etc., come in at night and have to walk to where the pasture is. once that is nubbed down they have to look for more. i would say that is a form of "hunting".

There's something really important and if we explore what Dr. Lee is saying, it would be a blessing.

Rosangela provided a link to Dr.Lee's lecture on page 1. If you are really interested, you can hear from the source itself.

Teresa,

I am a little surprised that such a phenomenon as this would not bless you. Why should we need to ask if it blesses someone else?

Nature was actually God's FIRST book (not the "second," because the Bible came much later than nature). Asking someone if they are blessed by studying nature is tantamount to asking if they are blessed by reading the Bible.

If indeed this has been occurring for a long time, I think it's worth sitting up and taking notice, don't you?

Teresa,

When scientists claimed bumblebees were not supposed to be able to fly (according to the laws of physics), did that cause "scorn" to the cause of God?

but its not important that you do. we are all different and different issues strike us of importance. this seems to be very important to you for some reason and i apologize for our seeming lack of sensitivity.

Of course, there will always be the Thomases who will not believe until they have seen it with their own eyes.

Elle, if the bees were keeping the Sabbath, this should able to substantiate by some other witness than Seventh-day Adventists. You can see why this would be desirable, can't you? Is there any such testimony available?

An interesting thing to consider is the character of this sort of evidence. This is appealing to miracles, as opposed to a "Thus saith the Lord," and this is exactly the sort of thing that was used to establish Sunday-keeping as being from God almost 2,000 years ago.

My sheeps don't hunt for food, they just take a step and eat. And then lie down to chew their cud. However, it is true that the farm animals and a great majority of animals we observe today there's not that much differences from any other day. But we shouldn't forget we are living with 6000 years of degenerative and subjection to sin. Should we assume that's how it is going to be in the new earth or in heaven also? Are we to assume that animals can't keep the sabbath?

I recall objecting to someone who forwarded an e-mail about McDonald's teaming up with Bill Gates to give them lots of money for just forwarding the e-mail to everyone they knew. I questioned if that was even reasonable. They responded that it might not be true, but they have to believe it because they hated their job and this was the only way out.
Urban legend is what it was called.


What's so wrong with asking if the bees do rest?
What's so wrong to ask when do they rest?
What's so wrong to ask how do they rest?
What's wrong with asking how many observed this?
What's wrong with asking why searching for "Sabbath keeping bees" only turns up the one video site (without text) and this one?
What's so wrong with asking what would be the purpose of them resting?
What's so wrong with asking why just these bees and not others?
What's so wrong with asking if bees can sin?
What's so wrong with asking how that enters into the corporate worship idea?

What's wrong with critical thinking?

The most intriguing of all biological rhythms are those set to a clock of about seven days. In his chapter "The Importance of Time," Jeremy Campbell reports: "These circaseptan, or about weekly, rhythms are one of the major surprises turned up by modern chronobiology. Fifteen years ago, few scientists would have expected that seven-day biological cycles would prove to be so widespread and so long established in the living world. They are of very ancient origin, appearing in primitive one-celled organisms, and are thought to be present even in bacteria, the simplest form of life now existing." [Jeremy Campbell, Winston Churchill's Afternoon Nap, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986), p. 75]

One of Franz Halberg's amazing discoveries is that of an innate rhythm -- about seven days -- occurring in a giant alga some five million years old on the evolutionary time line. Because this microscopic cell resembles a graceful champagne glass, the alga (plant) is popularly known as mermaid's wineglass (Acetabularia mediterranea). When this "primitive" alga is subjected to artificial schedules of alternating light and dark spans of varying length over many days, this single intact cell is somehow able to translate all that manipulation of light and darkness into the measurement of a seven-day week!

As Campbell says, this inherent rhythm has to do with the internal logic of the body, not with the external logic of the world. Many more examples could be given. Involved experimentation with rats, face flies, plants and other life have revealed circaseptan rhythms similar to that of the mermaid's wineglass. [Franz Halberg, "Quo Vadis Basic and Clinical Chronobiology: Promise for Health Maintenance," American Journal of Anatomy 168:543-594 (1983), pp. 569-570; Campbell, pp. 75-76.]

http://www.biblestudy.org/godsrest/mysterious-seven-day-cycle-in-plants-animals-man-1.html

But was it culture and religion alone that eventually moved earth's six billion people to now harmonize in a universal seven-day rhythm [the week]? The new and respected science of chronobiology (the study of how living things handle time) says no. Its discovery of circaseptan ("about seven") rhythms in human and other life forms points toward a biological explanation for the mystery of the week. In his study into the human nature of time, Jeremy Campbell states: "Inner time structure, in certain of its manifestations, seems to determine outer time structure, rather than the other way round. Rhythms of about seven days arose in living creatures millions of years before the calendar week was invented, and may conceivably be the reason why it was invented." [Jeremy Campbell, Winston Churchill's Afternoon Nap, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986). p. 83]

In addition to being the key coordinating rhythm for the rest of the body's many rhythmic interactions, a seven-day cycle has been found in fluctuations of blood pressure, acid content in blood, red blood cells, heartbeat, oral temperature, female breast temperature, urine chemistry and volume, the ratio between two important neurotransmitters, norepinephrine and epinephrine, and the rise and fall of several body chemicals such as the stress coping hormone, cortisol. "In fact," Perry and Dawson note, "weekly rhythms appear easiest to detect when the body is under stress, such as when it is defending itself against a virus, bacterium, or other harmful intruder. For example, cold symptoms (which are really signs of the body defending itself against the cold virus) last about a week. Chickenpox symptoms (a high fever and small red spots) usually appear almost exactly two weeks after exposure to the illness.:" [Susan Perry and Jim Davson, The Secrets Our Body Clocks Reveal, (New York: Rawson Associates, 1988) p. 22.]

Doctors have long observed that response to malaria infection and pneumonia crisis peaked at seven days. Organ transplants face similar crises as the body's immune system attack the foreign organ. Campbell explains: "When a human patient receives a kidney transplant, there is a rhythm of about seven days, a predictable rise and fall in the probability that the body's immune system will reject the new kidney. A major peak of rejection occurs seven days after the operation, and when a serum is given to suppress the immune reaction, a series of peaks occurs, with increasing risk of rejection, at one week, two weeks, three weeks and at four weeks, the time of the highest of all." [Campbell, p 76.]

...

Not only did the Designer/Creator leave his finger prints on everything he made, he left his calling card bonded to living cells telling us when he made life: in a seven-day creation week. That's when he wound up the clock of life and set it ticking in each of its forms to a rhythm of sevens. He gave life the frequency of seven. It's the beat of creation, a harmonic that points directly to the life-starter, life-giver himself!

http://www.biblestudy.org/godsrest/mysterious-seven-day-cycle-in-plants-animals-man-2.html

This would indicate a seven day cycle but not one which coincides with the Sabbath.

I tried searching for Acetabularia mediterranea and seven days, but found it interesting to only find religious sites. If a seven day cycle is significant, why isn't it in published journals?