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Bumble Bees can't fly... (Read 15203 times)
Alexander
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Bumble Bees can't fly...
Jun 25th, 2002, 6:45pm
 
Is it true that by design bumble bees aren't suppose to fly?... ???
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Dr. Kirsten
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Re: Bumble Bees can't fly...
Reply #1 - Jul 18th, 2002, 3:49pm
 
It is a myth that bumblebees shouldn't be able to fly... that they can't fly, well, that's a fallacy since you can watch them fly with your own eyes.  Interesting stories behind the myth though.

Since the myth became propogated by the media and general public with no facts to support it, for the longest time people just couldn't understand how these big fat aerodynamically impaired insects could get off the ground using such proportionally itty-bitty wings.  Finally, scientists realized that there was much more involved, and in the past few years much headway has been made in understanding the bumblebee flight phenomenon.  It has something to do with the way they use their wings and the lift generated by vortices that swirl behind the moving wing edges.

Here is a neat link abount a researcher who utilized lasers to study bee flight:  http://physicsweb.org/article/news/5/10/9

An interesting thread discussing the origin of the myth:  http://www.math.niu.edu/~rusin/known-math/98/bees

Brief description of insect flight and how lift helps them fly: http://www.howstuffworks.com/news-item223.htm
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Alexander
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Re: Bumble Bees can't fly...
Reply #2 - Aug 17th, 2002, 7:31pm
 
those links were very cool! thanks! Grin
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Dr. Kirsten
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Re: Bumble Bees can't fly...
Reply #3 - Aug 19th, 2002, 8:45pm
 
Glad you liked them... I had fun looking them up.  I think bees are way cool.  

I guess some new research has come in regarding their behavior when foraging bees come back to the hive.  Guard bees smell the forager bees to make sure they belong to the hive before they can be let in.  Foragers increase their body temperature up to 12 degrees during this greeting period.  It's hypothesized that the temperature increase makes their pheromones more volatile, and more easily sniffed.
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Alexander
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Re: Bumble Bees can't fly...
Reply #4 - Sep 10th, 2002, 7:36pm
 
Facinating! I want to learn more about how bees help polination... they so important to us... we have orangge grove shere in Florida... some of the orange growers hire these guys to come out and have their bees polinate the groves ... it's the craziest thing you've ever seen! Shocked
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Pursey Googleberry
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Re: Bumble Bees can't fly...
Reply #5 - Apr 21st, 2006, 12:37pm
 
That's such a lie! It is not a myth! They have done years and years of research and they have come to a conclusion, they cannot fly. But that doesn't make sense because we see bees fly. So they have tried to figure out how they fly. Scientists don't just come up with random conclusions to questions with no statistics.

Dr. Kirsten wrote on Jul 18th, 2002, 3:49pm:
It is a myth that bumblebees shouldn't be able to fly... that they can't fly, well, that's a fallacy since you can watch them fly with your own eyes.  Interesting stories behind the myth though.

Since the myth became propogated by the media and general public with no facts to support it, for the longest time people just couldn't understand how these big fat aerodynamically impaired insects could get off the ground using such proportionally itty-bitty wings.  Finally, scientists realized that there was much more involved, and in the past few years much headway has been made in understanding the bumblebee flight phenomenon.  It has something to do with the way they use their wings and the lift generated by vortices that swirl behind the moving wing edges.

Here is a neat link abount a researcher who utilized lasers to study bee flight:  http://physicsweb.org/article/news/5/10/9

An interesting thread discussing the origin of the myth:  http://www.math.niu.edu/~rusin/known-math/98/bees

Brief description of insect flight and how lift helps them fly: http://www.howstuffworks.com/news-item223.htm

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Re: Bumble Bees can't fly...
Reply #6 - May 8th, 2006, 3:00pm
 
What is a lie? Your statements seem a bit redundant to previous comments in this discussion as well as negating your initial claim.

Research has shown how bees CAN fly. Much of it has to do with their small size in relation to the size of the earth making gravity less of an issue for them than it is for us. But, the vortices that their wings create also createupward drafts on which their bodies can be propelled. Fascinating, these flying insects!
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