Formic Acid

In plants it is the oxalic acid that provides the basic life-giving substance. Oxalis clover, rhubarb, and wood sorrel have lots of oxalic acid, and there we can taste the sour acid element more easily than in most vegetables. In the animal kingdom, specifically in the stinging insects, it is the formic acid that plays a major role. Formic acid (formica=ant) is the poison we feel when an ant bites us, or a wasp or bee stings us. Each of these species produces a variation of formic acid.

As the bees and wasps receive nectar and pollen from the flowers, they are able to take in some of this oxalic acid, but they do not only take, they also give to the plants. As these insects fly and crawl through nature, they distribute formic acid. An old forest ranger in Germany once told me that wherever ants are missing in forests, the plants lose their vitality and die more quickly than if there is an ample amount of these insects around. Thus, ant colonies are being reestablished and protected in European forests to keep the trees healthy.

This formic acid, in finest dilution, wafts through the air, and in Spring the germinating seeds and budding perennials receive this formic acid that has been produced the year before. These insects not only produce the poison in order to sting, but it is exuded constantly and given off to the atmosphere in the finest dilutions where it remains, ready to serve as the plants spring tonic. So, on such a basic level, these stinging insects are the nurturers of life on earth since they provide something so essential to plants, which, in turn provide food, directly or indirectly, to all other beings.

Each one of these two acids acts as an invigorator, as a boost to the life processes for the other kingdom. It is with the help of these minute quantities of formic acid that the earth's entire plant life grows and thrives. And, on the other hand, it is the plants oxalic acid that stimulates and invigorates the animal and human kingdoms.

The commonly accepted image we have of life being based on fight and competition, with the survival of the fittest, loses its sting when we consider these grand, symbiotic, mutually beneficial, interrelationships.

Let us take a closer look at the role these acids play in our very own lives. As we eat our spinach, broccoli, chard, carrots, fruit and berries, we also take up the oxalic acid contained in them. Now a mysterious transformation occurs; we are able to change this acid into our very own formic acid. Actually, one can achieve this very process in the chemical laboratory. Glycerin is added to oxalic acid in a retort; when heated, carbon dioxide escapes and the steamy vapors condense to and behold formic acid. Similarly, we have small amounts of glycerin in our body and the fire of our digestion is able to instigate this transformation in us.

Just as our entire endocrine processes those governing growth, health and reproduction function by virtue of miniscule amounts of the secretion created by the pituitary gland, these same miniscule amounts of formic and oxalic acid provide the basis for life processes in our body. Let us be reminded that without deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), no life on Earth would be possible. It is this process of transforming oxalic acid into formic acid that allows us to live as spiritual beings in a physical body (as described in Rudolf Steiner's lectures, Bees). We are still at the very beginning of a science investigating life itself that takes processes, chemical transformations, into account and not only the substances themselves.

For our life on Earth we depend on the vast numbers of individual stinging insects, which enliven the plant kingdom with their formic acid. Our attitude toward these insects will have to undergo a drastic revision, away from disdain, anger, and fear toward one of gratitude and respect, toward nurturing and partnership instead of killing or exploitation.

We can now understand that our lives depend on honeybees, ants, wasps, and hornets. But why does the honeybee take a special place among all these formic acid-producing insects? In contrast to the solitary and bumble, carpenter and orchard bees, or hornets and wasps, the honeybees live through the winter as a colony of 10,000-20,000 individual workers. By the end of March, they may have already doubled their numbers and by summer solstice may reach 40,000-60,000 in number. Bumble and orchard bees, wasps and hornets have only young queens surviving the winter, and it takes two to three months until a colony of several hundred insects can do their enlivening work in nature. The vast numbers of honeybees flying already in early Spring not only contribute to the much needed pollination, but to the amount of formic acid released into nature.

by Gunther Hauk Gunther_Hauk.htm