• Question: how can bumblebees fly when their bodies are so fat??

    Asked by poppxx to Mike, Pip, Tianfu, Tim, Tom on 26 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by confuddled213.
    • Photo: Tom Lister

      Tom Lister answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      This was a hot topic for a very long time in the science world. Fat bodies and little wings don’t seem to be helpful if you want to fly. Slow motion cameras are great, and show that the bee makes a figure of eight with its wings, rather than just flapping them up and down. That gives a bit more life, enough for them to fly.

      Plus, there’s a lot of fluff on them, so they might look bigger than they are…

    • Photo: Philippa Bird

      Philippa Bird answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      Great question.

    • Photo: Tim Stephens

      Tim Stephens answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      It is a great question. As it happens, we work with the group in Oxford University who did the high-speed video that Tom’s talking about. They trained bees to fly in a wind-tunnel and then measured the airflow around them as they flew. Amazing stuff!

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