How can it Fly?

Question

If a Bumble Bee's wing span is too small,
it's muscle power is insufficient to power it's wings,
and it's body has little or no aerodynamic qualities,
How the bloody hell can it fly?

Answer 1

Well, clearly they can. This is one of those fabulous urban myths. And it's been going since the 1930s, which puts it way ahead of the poodle in the microwave!

One story of its origin first surfaced in Germany in the 1930s. One evening at a dinner party, a prominent expert on aerodynamics got talking to a biologist, who asked about the flight of bees. To answer the biologist's query, the engineer did a quick "back-of-the-napkin" calculation.

To keep things simple, he assumed a rigid, smooth wing, guessed the bee's weight and wing area, and then calculated the lift generated by the wing. According to that rough calculation, there was insufficient lift. That was about all he could do at a dinner party. The detailed calculations had to wait. The biologist, however, took this "guesstimate" as gospel truth and evidence of nature's superiority over science.

Interestingly, the myth has actually driven forward research into insect flight.
The story gets new life breathed into it every time a researcher refers to the "bumblebees can't fly" theory in their own remarks, while pointing to their "new, improved" model to describe insect flight.

The real issue isn't that scientists can be wrong. It's that there's a crucial difference between a "thing" in reality and a mathematical model of that "thing."
In this case, a certain simple mathematical model wasn't adequate or appropriate for describing the flight of a bumblebee.

Insect flight and wing movements can be quite complicated. Wings aren't rigid. They bend and twist. Stroke angles change. Recent models take that into account.

And actually, on average, a bumblebee travels at a rate of 3 metres per second. That's not bad for an insect.

:)

Answer 2

Scientists have found the wings are attached to an elastic muscle-type substance that means beating the wings is a lot more efficient than we thought - in the same way the pendulum on a clock keeps swinnging back and forth with very low, constant energy input. Or a tuning fork contiunes to vibrate for a long time after it is initially stuck.

Answer 3

Bush lies so Bumble Bee's Fly
Its the black helicopters holding them all up with wire
It is a Right Wing plot to take rights from Americans
Wasn't this a Gov. question?

Answer 4

Actualy if you watch a big bumble bee. Sometimes they seem to drop straight down and lose altitude or land in the grass to rest.

Obviously their muscle power is sufficient to fly at least for short distances.

Answer 5

That is the question scientists have been tryiing to find the answer to for years.
There is no one correct answer, aerodynamicly speaking. Nature wanted us to use our minds. That's why she threw bumble bee's into the mix.
What is the only poisonous mammal?
The platypus. Another anomoly of Nature.

Answer 6

This is an urban myth. Bumblebees do have the aerodynamic qualities needed to fly. Here is the wiki article and they discuss this. Look under "Bumblebee myths"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumble_bee#Flight

Answer 7

The bumble bee can clearly fly, but because the computer model suggests it can't, you're asking 'How can it fly?'

Perhaps you should be asking, 'What's wrong with the computer?'

Answer 8

it's a mystery as bees defy the laws of aerodynamics

Answer 9

To scare kids, i'd be able to fly if it could scare people so much.

Answer 10

you can fly on a plane