Bumblebees are chubby and have small wings, so a priori it does not seem that they can fly very well. In fact, in the nineties various researchers argued that the flight of this insect was actually impossible, and that it went against all the laws of aerodynamics. However, it is not necessary to be a scientist to realize that these insects can fly, as extraordinary as it may seem.
As a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences states, bumblebees move their wings back and forth, instead of moving them up and down as most people think. In addition, according to the researchers at the University of Washington who have carried out the study, the small wings of these insects have enough strength to keep them in the air.
It could be concluded, therefore, that bumblebees do not actually defy any laws of physics . They just fly because they can, even if they don’t know it. Also, to carry out the research, scientists have collected data using high-speed photographs of flying bees. However, biologists are still investigating the flight process, so many unknowns remain unresolved.
The physics behind the bumblebee’s flapping
There are various reasons why the bumblebee is believed to be unable to fly, although the most widely held theory is that an engineer and a biologist in the 1930s tried to make calculations based on the bumblebee’s mass, size, and shape. However, they did not obtain any coherent results since they were based on the mechanisms that airplanes use to fly.
This was a complete mistake, since insects move through the air in a very different way than airplanes. In fact, the wing of an airplane pushes the air down, which in turn pushes the wing up. That is, airplanes keep their wings static, while bumblebees beat them quickly by changing direction abruptly. This movement of the wings, in the shape of a helicopter propeller, generates a series of turbulence that keeps them in the air and helps them propel them.
Other investigations
Other research has previously found that bumblebees can fly. In fact, a Chinese research team, led by Tsinghua University’s Lijang Zeng, glued small pieces of glass to bees to track reflected light during flight. However, scientists are more interested in discovering how they control themselves when they move through the air. These studies could be useful in the future to create fleets of robotic insects.
