How do bees fly?

. According to foreign media reports, bees in people's eyes only can collect nectar to make honey, but few people pay attention to how bees fly. U.S. researchers have recently used high-speed digital photography and remote control models of bee wings to speculate on the flight mechanism of bees, and found that the flight mechanism of bees is more peculiar than we thought, and their ability to fly with weight is very powerful.

Scientists in the research process on the flight of the bee images for hours of shooting, and equipped with force sensors of the automatic device to simulate the flight of bees, through the analysis of the results of the shooting, the results of the bee flight mechanism than imagined even more peculiar, not only the frequency of the wings is very high, and in different environments, the amplitude of the wings is also not the same.

Douglas Atshuler, a scientist from the California Institute of Technology, said of the findings: "Bees beat their wings very quickly, and under hovering conditions, fruit flies with bodies one-eightieth that of a bee beat their wings more than 200 times per second, compared with much larger bees that beat their wings more than 200 times per second," he said. In contrast, the much larger honeybee beats its wings more than 230 times per second. At the same time, they have to transport pollen and nectar for other bees to eat, and they sometimes carry loads equal to their weight. This has led to a keen interest in the flight mechanism of bees, and if this principle could be applied to flight, it would greatly improve the performance of our existing airplanes."

To figure out how the bees could carry such a heavy load, Atshuler and his colleagues had the bees fly in a confined space with smaller concentrations of oxygen and helium than ordinary air, which required them to work much harder to maintain an upward attitude, and the scientists took advantage of the opportunity to look at the bees' compensatory mechanisms for coping with the increased workload, and found that the bees simply increased the amplitude of their wing beats but did not adjust the frequency of their wingbeats. did not adjust the frequency of their wingbeats.

Atshuler said the discovery will help in the design of an airplane that can hover in the right position while carrying supplies, which could be used for a variety of purposes, including monitoring earthquakes or tsunamis and transporting relief supplies.

2. New research has found that a bee's flight is not all accomplished by its wings, but its legs also play an important role. When a bee flies, its legs are not folded up; instead, it extends its hind legs forward to help it fly. During flight, the legs not only generate upward force, but also help the bee to maintain balance and prevent tumbling. The discovery will be useful in the development of small vehicles for search and rescue and surveillance missions. The bee's top flight speed depends neither on the strength of its muscles nor on how often it vibrates its wings, but on its ability to control itself and regulate its balance in unstable flight conditions. Its outstretched hind legs help it balance, just as a figure skater balances herself by spreading her arms in a fast spin

2. How does a bee fly? This has always been a puzzling question. What's even more puzzling, however, is that scientists have discovered, to their surprise, that bees can't fly at all if you look at the traditional aerodynamic principles that govern the flight of flying machines like airplanes. But these tiny bees are great flyers. So how is it that they are able to reject the classical laws of aerodynamics in their entirety? Scientists have used robotic models, combined with slow-motion video, to solve the mystery of how bees fly. The findings were published in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Bees can't fly according to traditional aerodynamic principles.

Insects were the world's first aviators, according to New Scientist and other media reports, and today their evolved descendants perform flying stunts that are far more spectacular than elite competitions. They can streak past you like shooting stars; can hover over flowers like helicopters; and disappear without a trace in a flash just as you're about to swat them.

Insect flight is one of the great mysteries of the 20th century, by the scientific method, and it still baffles. Some studies have shown that insects fly by beating their wings violently, a force too small to be applied to airplanes.In 1934, scientists Antoine Maganlai and André Sanlaikou conducted a study of bee flight. They applied mathematical analysis and known principles of flight to calculate the flight of bees and concluded that "bee flight is impossible". Since then, bees have become the poster child for non-compliance with aerodynamic principles. Although the mystery of bee flight is the top of the iceberg, researchers have long been trying to figure out the flight of all insects, from the tiny fruit fly to the sinister-looking dragonfly. That's because insect flight is a very different skill set than human flight, and the physics of the latter can't explain the flight of the former. Because insects like bumblebees, dragonflies, fruit flies and other flying insects are so small, you have to use a microscope to see their flight maneuvers and the incredible forces of nature and inescapable effects.

High-speed video recorders have helped scientists capture the amplitude and number of bees' wing beats.

The latest example is this study by Otsuler, Dixon and their colleagues. To unravel the bees' flight tactics, they report in their paper, the scientists herded the bees into a clear plastic box in which three high-speed video recorders were planted to take 3-D snapshots of the bees at 6,000 times per second. They found that the hovering bees often flapped their one-centimeter-long wings at 240 times per second, each time at only 90 degrees - smaller than other insects', but faster. This is because other insects beat less than 200 times per second, with each beat exceeding 165 degrees. It has always been the assumption of flight experts that the smaller the insect, the faster its wings beat. Bees are an exception to this rule; for example, the Italian honeybee (Apis mellifera) beats its 10-millimeter-wide wings up to 240 times per second, which is much faster than the much smaller fruit fly, which beats only 200 times per second. Why would a bee with short wings beat its wings as fast as possible in small increments? To find out, the researchers also observed how these insects fly in low-pressure, high-altitude conditions. When they fly into hives with low concentrations of oxygen and helium, the air inside is as thin as the level at 9,200 meters above sea level, at which point the bees have to increase their flapping amplitude to nearly 140 degrees, close to the amplitude of other insects, in order to support their flight, an unusual way for the bees to adapt to the varying demands they face in flight. This is because, when it comes to changing speeds, short-range swats are quicker than longer-range swats.

The researchers found that bees' wings change direction to generate extra force. This key work in the field of insect flight research was done by Charles Illington of the University of Cambridge, England, along with other scientists, including Dixon. Robotic flying insects, large robotic insect models of the same scale built by Dixon in 1996, helped. As the robot's wings beat back and forth, they measured the forces on different parts of it. The scientists found that the lifting force produced by the bees was not steady, but was greatest at the beginning, middle and end of each beat. There is also a peculiar force known as the extra mass force, which can peak at the end of each swat. This force also increases acceleration when the wing direction is changed. In other words, a change in wing orientation can generate extra force. The researchers found that most insects flap their wings more, while bees' are smaller but more violent. One of the bee's ways is inefficient and less stable. Scientists believe that this unusual way of flying for bees is an adaptation to the different demands they face in flight. When looking for honey, they are at their lightest; when stuck with pollen, or with eggs, they weigh twice as much as usual. In altering their speed, a short beat is quicker than a long one, so that the manner in which a bee flies can greatly alter the force of its ascent. Agree 0| Comments