• Question: how can bees fly when they are so fat?

    Asked by michaelodst to Edd, Jess, Zara on 23 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Jessica Chu

      Jessica Chu answered on 23 Jun 2011:

      haha michael.. your question made me laugh..

      apparently bees have some tricks that helps them!
      it flaps its wings which means they are moving through the air a lot faster than the bee is, but this still doesn’t produce enough lift.

      The bee’s wings are at a much greater angle than an aircraft wing, this deflects the air downwards by a large amount, but it creates a vortex (tube of spinning air), producing a large wake, which uses lots of energy.
      Another trick the bee uses is the one you should have noticed with your hand. When its wings change direction they hit their old wake, and convert some of the momentum of this moving air into extra lift, making the whole thing much more efficient.

      The information was from this website… and lots more on there:

      http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/kitchenscience/exp/can-bees-fly/

    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 23 Jun 2011:

      Hi michaelodst! 🙂

      Jess has already given you an answer… I won’t add anything to it other than this picture:

    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 23 Jun 2011:

      Can’t add much here except to point you towards the largest flying insect ever known, the Meganeura dragonfly:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meganeura

      These were predators with a 2.5ft wingspan – I’d certainly want the bugspray handy if one was flying around me!

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