Bees at War!

30 October 2014

            Someone once said, “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”  But he was talking about people, not about bees.  But, I guess, organized societies of insects have some of the same issues as organized societies of people. 

            The place is Austrialia.  The problem: a protracted war between the Carbonaria’s and the Hockings'.  These aren't two feuding families like the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s or the Montague’s and the Capulet’s. These are two different two different species of Tetragonula bees.  And they just won’t stop fighting.

Eternal Struggle?

            For several years, now, at a certain time of the year, Australian residents have been seeing large swarms around tree hives. These clouds are, actually, large battling swarms of worker bees fighting to the death.  Some “battle clouds” of bees have even hovered uncomfortably close to residents’ homes. And the owners of about 600 of these homes, who keep hives of bees as pets, are concerned to the point of upset over the on-going battles around their hives.  

No Pacifist Bees?

            You might think that friendlier strains of bees might be found and kept as pets. Maybe hives filled with one of the unusual, though not rare, breeds of stingless bees might be the answer.  Surely a stingless bee would be more docile and peace-loving than its stinging cousins?

            Guess again.

             The Tetragonula bee is a genus of stingless bee.  So, both the Carbonaria’s and the Hockings’ are as “disarmed” as bees get.  Stingless or not, they have no trouble fighting to the death.  Anyone standing under one of those bee “battle-clouds” suffers a rain of dead bees all around them, as casualties of the battle tumble out of the air to the ground.  The battling worker bees grab and hold each other – locked in a sort of “death-grip” -- until both combatants die.

The Carnage of War (from BBC)

Invaders from the North?

            In one particularly active season of conflict, investigators watched as three waves of invading Hockings bees descended from the North to lay siege to many surprised hives of Carbonaria bees. 

Northern Invaders

Graceless in Victory

            The Hockings invaders from the North seem to be winning the war, battle by battle, taking over hive after hive of the defeated Carbonaria’s.  The winning northern invaders promptly move into the hives of the defeated enemy installing their own queen and taking possession of the hive’s honey and pollen stores as the spoils of war.  Enemy stragglers are dealt with swiftly as the Hockings bees drag any remaining Carbonaria workers and “youngsters” out of the hive to complete the enemy eviction.

Barbarian Bees From the North?

            The Carbonaria’s honey and pollen stores were only part of what attracted the opportunistic Hockings bees from the North.  The Cabonariea’s refined style of architecture, including orderly spiral shaped nests, were envied by their Northern neighbors whose own hive architecture and maintenance is more chaotic. 

            Investigators can clearly identify the captured hives by observing the clear deterioration in style, maintenance and repair of the former Carobonaria hives that have fallen into the hands (or whatever) of the barbarian bees from the North.

The Criminal Culture of the South American Tetroganula Bees

            Just because the hives aren't worth taking doesn't mean your bee colony is safe.  In South America, bees of the same Tetragonula genus don’t even bother with their victims’ hives.  The South American species just attack and clean out the enemy hive’s honey and pollen stores. 

            And these aren't wayward individual bees, fallen on hard times, who “pinch” a little honey for a much needed meal.  Bees are organized.  And their crime is organized crime!  Not only have these South American crime colonies become organized honey robbers, cleaning out all the stores of honey and pollen from victim hives, but they, also, leave no witnesses from the victimized hives.

M Grossmann of Hazelwood, Missouri

& Belleville, Illinois

About the Author

Killer Bees? -- The Africanized Honeybee

25 September 2014

            Before we go. 

            With some exceptions, bees sting.  Bees gather honey.  Honey is a really popular food.  The “honey bear” isn’t just a children’s story.  Because bees sting, they can sometimes fight off a bear.  But imagine a bee colony in Africa.  The African plains and jungles boast some of the largest, most ferocious and aggressive animals on earth. 

            How could a colony of honeybees survive and keep their food stores – their honey -- in Africa?  By being the most ferocious and aggressive stinging bees on earth.  Say hello to Apis mellifera scutellata – better know as “the killer bee.”

            If you live in Europe or the U.S., the bee you saw outside, today, was probably Apis mellifera ligustica – the Italian bee.  The Africanized honeybee isn’t a “cousin” of the Italian honeybee.  They’re much more closely related. 

            In fact, they are different breeds of the same species, Apis mallifera.  If these bees were dogs, they’d be related to each other as a bull dog is related to a fox terrier.  And, like a bulldog and fox terrier, these two breeds of bees, the Italian and the African, can mate to produce a hybrid bee.

            Africanized bees are great honey producers.  But, sometimes, it’s hard to tell whether they’re great honey producers or great honey protectors.  “Honey robbers” don’t last so long with Africanized bees.  Beekeepers use the term “defensive” to describe aggressive bee behavior.  And, I suppose from the bees’ point of view, they are defending themselves.  But Africanized bees take “defensive” behavior to much higher level than other breeds.

            This story really begins near a city named Rio Claro in the Sao Paulo Province of Brazil.  There, several colonies of an especially defensive strain of Africanized bees were maintained by biologist Warwick E. Kerr.

 

            Kerr was attempting create a new breed of bee better adapted to honey production in tropical climates.  The common breeds of honeybees in the southern part of North American and all of South America aren’t particularly good honey producers when compared to U.S. and Canadian bees.  Unfortunately, these productive strains of North American bees don’t thrive in hot, arid or tropical environments.

            Careful precautions were taken to prevent any of these particularly aggressive African bees from escaping into the wilds of Brazil.  The fear was that, if the reproductive queens and drones escaped, they might begin their own colonies or mate with local bees to create dangerously aggressive new breeds.  Security measures required “extruder screens” in the Africanized bee hives.  These screens prevent the escape of any reproductive bees (queens or drones) from the hive.

            But, if you’ve ever seen a science fiction film, you know about “accidents.”  In 1957, a visiting beekeeper noticed that one of the extruders was interfering with the work of the worker bees and . . . removed the screen.  The mistake was almost immediately corrected, but 26 queens with swarms of workers managed to escape.

            Africanized bees are survivors.

            The escapees crossbred with local bees.  Colonies of new breeds of bees developed.  The swift and unassisted spread of the Africanized bees, through South and Central America, made them one of the most successful invasive species ever known.

            By 1985, Africanized honeybees were found in Southern California.  Then, in 1990, they were found in Texas.  First discovered in Tucson, Arizona in 1994, within less than a decade their relative numbers rose from 15% to 90% of the bee population in the region.

            But, if Africanized honeybees are so productive, why not just keep them and be happy?  The issue with the Africanized bees is, again, their “defensiveness.”  People are sometimes surprised to discover that, throughout the world, developers of hybrid bees are trying to create new strains of bees whose only characteristic improvement is a lack of defensiveness.  Any beekeeper can tell you that handling bees can be extremely dangerous. 

            Most people have seen a picture of a beekeeper draped from head to toe with screen cloth and other protective garments while covered – literally covered – with bees.  But the beekeeper never forgets that those relatively quiet bees are carrying enough toxic venom to kill dozens of people. 

            Particular breeds of bees are valued from their docile disposition.  Beekeepers don’t want excitable bees.  Figuratively speaking, a beekeeper wants a “calm,” “level-headed” type of bee rather than a “nervous” bee -- always on the verge of hysteria.

            Even relatively docile European and American bee strains can suddenly display extremely defensive behavior.  In one instance, a dog owner routinely tied their pet in their backyard about 40 feet away from a beehive.  After months of peaceful co-existence, the dog owners came home, one day, to find their dog suffering with multiple bee stings.

            What happened?  It’s difficult to say.  Something triggered the bees’ “defensive” behavior.  Maybe a threat from another animal provoked a swarm of stinging bees that didn’t make a distinction between the threatening attacker and the poor dog who, tied and unable to retreat, was probably perceived by the swarm as “holding his ground” against them.   

            Again, in contrast to common strains of American honeybees, the Africanized bee takes “defensiveness” to a whole new level.  There is no difference between the venom of the Africanized bee and American bee. The difference is in the behavior. 

            Africanized bees are much more likely to attack with much less provocation than their American and European counterparts.  And, when Africanized bees attack, they attack in large numbers and are particularly relentless in pursuit of the “threat.”  These bees will follow a retreating person or animal almost a third of mile before giving up the chase.

            The physical appearance of the Africanized bee increases the potential for trouble.  These bees look little different from common honeybees.  Africanized bees are, in fact, a bit smaller than the typical North American honeybee.  You could live, work, or play near a wild hive of Africanized bees without being able to recognize the threat.

            In a recent incident, a man and woman were suddenly attacked by a swarm of Africanized bees from a colony known to inhabit a nearby tree.  The couple knew there were bees, but had no idea that these were Africanized. 

            In the nightmarish incident, the woman recounted that suddenly everything became dark.  It took a moment for her to realize that a giant swarm of bees was blocking the sunlight.  The stinging began.  Desperate, the couple jumped into a nearby body of water.  But Africanized bees recognize this behavior and are prepared for it.

            After holding their breath for a few moments, the couple stood up.  But the swarm had been hovering over the water and began furiously stinging the couple.  The pair took a breath and went back down under the water.  Then, they raised their faces, nose and mouth, just above the surface to breathe.  Again, Africanized bees recognize this behavior.  When each nose and mouth rose just above the surface, the bees descended on their exposed faces stinging.

            Realizing their only hope was to reach cover, both jumped out of the water and made a run for the back door of the house.  They were stung as they fled, but made it inside to safety.  As the woman shut the door, she heard pounding on the door behind her and on windows around the door.  It was the bees.  A number of them killed themselves as they impacted the door and windows, at high velocity, in pursuit. 

            After a 911 call; a visit from Animal Control; and a trip to the emergency room, both victims were on the road to recovery.

 

            The problem with Africanized bees isn’t just their appearance.  It’s, also, the way these bees spread.  Although sometimes Africanized bees establish colonies in the usual way – a queen bee leads a swarm of worker bees to a new location – they also use some frankly devious strategies to gain control of existing colonies. 

            Sometimes, an Africanized queen, traveling alone, will enter an established hive of common honeybees and kill the queen to take her place.  Soon, the hive’s common workers bees find themselves raising a brood of young Africanized bees.  Sometimes, an Africanized drone (male) bee will mate with a common queen bee outside of the hive.  A new brood of Africanized bees will be produced by an established hive of common bees. 

            Of course, sometimes, a direct strategy is used with the Africanized queen and swarm attacking an established hive of common bees and driving the hive’s occupants, queens and workers, out.  The invaders don’t just get a pre-built place to live – the hive.  When they take over the hive, they also take over the honey and pollen stores accumulated by the old colony.

            Although it is impossible to monitor every colony in the wild, North American beekeepers, routinely, examine their hives for Africanized strains.  Yes, beekeeper can’t always detect a take-over by Africanized bees – even in commercially maintained “bee yards” (apiaries).  If an Africanized colony is found, it’s sometimes destroyed (when clearly a threat to a nearby population).

            But beekeepers have some clever strategies of their own.  They can remove the Africanized queen and replace it with a North American queen.  Or, even better, if it is possible to get a North American “laying queen,” she will begin to lay all the eggs in the Africanized hive.  But her eggs will produce a pure strain of common honeybees.

            In some parts of South America, beekeepers are trying to adapt and use Africanized bee colonies for honey production.  These bees are very productive, but very dangerous.  Aside from the dangers to beekeepers, themselves, the bee yards containing these bees must be located far away from human populations.  To date, success of the strategy is spotty.   

            There is irony to the story of the release of the Africanized honeybees in South America.   At the time of the accident, intense hybrid breeding projects were ongoing in Brazil.  But these projects involved a different strain of bee.  Brazil is home to a bee called Melapona.  This bee is only a modest honey-producer.  Yet, efforts were, and are, being made to increase the bee’s honey production.  

What’s so special about the Melapona bee?  

Why is the Melapona of so much interest to bee breeders?  

Well, the development of a good honey-producing Melapona bee would make beekeeping a lot easier for commercial beekeepers.  The Melapona is one of the few honey-producing bees that is stingless.    The Melapona doesn’t sting at all. 

M Grossmann of Hazelwood, Missouri

& Belleville, Illinois

About the Author

Honeybees Staying in the Finest Hotels

16 October 2014

            Beekeepers have been welcomed onto the grounds of major international airports all over the world.  The unused acreage along the sides of the runways is maintained to muffle noise.  No one could find any practical use for the vacant land until it was allowed to go back to natural, wild grassland. 

            Airports invest a lot in a kind of firework, which is used to scare away large birds.  Geese and other large fowl can create real problems if they collide with aircraft.  But small birds and insects remain welcome and are attracted to the wild grass habitat available on the grounds of most airports. 

            Then, someone got the idea of renting the unused land along the runways to beekeepers.  These grasslands had plenty of blossoms to supply the bees with the nectar they use to make honey.  And, the bees and their colonies are undisturbed by the aircraft noise. 

            Now, airport-produced honey and other bee-related products are sold or given away at many international airports.  In Germany, the honey produced by its airport bees is regularly tested for toxins and impurities.  It turns out that honey is a remarkably sensitive barometer of environmental pollution.

            Now, honeybees may be in line for jobs inside the airport.  A honeybee’s nose puts the nose of a sniffer-dog to shame in terms of sensitivity.  And bees are being used to detect the odors of explosives, drugs and even contraband foodstuffs using a new technology called a buzzbox. 

            The bees don’t even have to leave the buzzbox they live in.  Air is vented through the box and the bees’ reaction reveal the presence of the substance that the bees have been trained to detect.  Trained to detect?  Yes, bees can be trained to detect and react to specific odors.  How long does the training take?  The bee’s learning curve is amazingly short.  The bee’s ability to detect a certain substance peaks after about 10 minutes of training.  Yes, just 10 minutes. 

            Now, honeybees live at the airport and will soon be working inside the airport.  But why stop there.  From any major airport, it’s only a short hop to some of the world’s best hotels.  And these days, that’s where many honeybees are living and working in rooftop bee yards. 

            Atlanta’s Four Seasons Hotel houses their honeybees on a terrace giving guests a view of the working colonies.  The hotel spa carries its own line of lip balm handmade with the beeswax from made by the hotel’s bees.  Of course, the honey is used directly in food preparation and has spurred the development of new cuisine items such as salted honey caramels.

            Not to be outdone, in Bradford, PA, The Lodge at Glendorn combines honey from its apiaries with ice cream to create a unique version of honey panna cotta.  And honey can smooth the taste of liquid refreshments such as honey bourbon cocktails. 

            In Carmel Valley, CA, the Carmel Valley Ranch understands that their once “promising” honeybee colonies “have kept their promise” and guests are encouraged not “to keep their distance.”  After enjoying a honey-sweetened lemonade, guests regularly “suit-up” and visit the Ranch’s hives boasting a population of about 60,000 honeybees.

            No less than New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel has its own rooftop apiary where the beekeeper works directly with the hotel’s culinary staff to assure the best possible honey for the hotel’s cuisine.  The Waldorf’s own honey is used in fried chicken glaze and several sauces.

            Honeybees have already conquered a whole new urban habitat in and around our major airports.  I must say I was surprised to find that they are also traveling in the best social circles and are comfortably blending into high society with a remarkable ease. 

M Grossmann of Hazelwood, Missouri & Belleville, Illinois

About the Author 

Honeybees Moving to Our Airports?

9 October 2014

Lambert-Saint Louis International Airport

            Lambert-Saint Louis International Airport is receiving only a modest revenue from its recent addition of beehives to a tract of land just north of one of its runways.  The land, formerly “Freeborne Park,” had become overgrown with wild grassland after it was annexed by the airport.  Now, a “bee yard” (or commercial apiary) has moved in. The tract boasts abundant Dutch clover with an absence of pesticides.

BEE YARDS (APIARIES) MOVE TO AIRPORTS

Bees at Vaclay Havel Airport in Prague

            Following the lead of several German airports, Seattle’s Sea-Tac Airport and Chicago’s O’Hare Airport are welcoming commercial beekeepers and their bee yards (apiaries) onto the airport property. 

Aviary at Chicago's O'Hare Airport

            Actually, the invitations make good sense for the airports.  Runways require borders of large tracks of unused land for security and, also, to absorb the noise of takeoffs and landings.  Use of the open tracks for other purposes proved unsuccessful.  The noise and other disruption, from runway takeoffs and landings, have made golf courses and other types of parks less popular choices.  Much of this unused airport property had been allowed to return to a more natural state with wild grass allowed to grow. 

Apiary at Seattle's Sea-Tac Airport

            Although noise-making devices, something like fireworks, are used to drive larger birds away from the airports to avoid dangerous collisions with air traffic, small birds and wild bees are attracted to open areas and are quite welcome.  This habitat is particular valuable to the familiar, large and rather “round” bumblebee.  The wild bumbles have suffered large population declines from a loss of the wild grass habitats they require.

Bee Yard at Lambert Airport St. Louis, Missouri

            Recently, Seattle’s Sea-Tac Airport established a non-profit common ground on their unused land where several bee yards are, now, operating.  At Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, the honey and beeswax produced by the airport’s resident bee colonies are sold in the airport market. 

Robins Apiary at St. Louis Lambert Airport

            In Germany, the airport-produced honey is given to passengers for free as a good-will gesture.  There, the honey production by the airport’s bees serves another purpose.   The honey is regularly tested for toxins associated with both jet fuel and local automotive traffic emissions.  Honey, the honeybee’s most popular product, is an excellent barometer of air and environmental pollution.

Germany's Düsseldorf International Airport

“WORKING” BEES IN THE AIRPORT?            

            Now, honeybees are at the airport.  But, at least in some places, the bees may soon be in the airport.  What will these honeybees be doing in the airport?  Traveling?  Panhandling? 

            No.  Working.

            As long ago as 2006, researchers were testing the bee’s ability to “sniff out” drugs and even explosives.  So, not only may the DEA and Home Land Security be using a security team of honeybees at the airport, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may get in on the act as well.  It turns out bees are as good at detecting food quality.  So, contraband plants or food products may, also, soon be on the airport honeybee team’s list of contraband.

            How exactly do these honeybees “work” at the airport?  Answer: they hang out in their buzz box.

            What’s a buzzbox? 

            Well, first things first. 

            Bees have one of the most acute senses of smell in all of nature.  Sniffer dogs can barely smell a thing when compared to your average honeybee. 

            The real breakthrough was the discovery that bees can be trained to smell other things instead of flowers.  All you have to do is reward bees when they detect the smell of drugs, explosives, or contraband foods.  With just a few repeated rewards, they are trained.  What do you reward the bees with?  Something sweet -- of course.  Sugar water will do.    

            How long does the training take?  About 10 minutes.  And, the bees stay trained for life.  In nature, bees live in a hive.  Security bees live in a “buzz box.”  When air is blown through their “buzz box,” their behavior alerts officers to the presence of the drugs, explosives or, even bad or contraband food products that the particular group of bees has been trained to detect.

            But should bees be allowed to work under such difficult conditions?  Constant sweet rewards and, with the buzzbox, the bees are forced to “work from home.” 

            Wouldn’t the bees rather work in a commercial apiary?   Well, if the bee's job is honey production, apiary life isn't so bad.  But if the bee's job is pollination, it's another story.

            The typical apiary providing pollination services is a place where bees are loaded onto trucks every pollination season and transported 24 hours a day on bumpy roads to major pollination sites. Then, they’re starved for a day to make sure they are motivated to pollinate before being released into the fields.  Oh, and twice as many bees are released into those fields as are needed.  Why?  To make sure the bees can’t quite gather as much food as they’d like.  That helps assure that absolutely every flower gets pollinated.  And, on a bad day, they might accidentally get exposed to pesticides. 

            Yeah, with working conditions like that, why would honeybees want to stay in buzzbox at the airport and get sweet rewards all day?

            So, honeybees may soon not only be living in the open areas around our airports, but working in our airports!

M Grossmann of Hazelwood, Missouri & Belleville, Illinois

About the Author





F F F F F F     

The Bee & The Perfect Landing

2 October 2014

 “Bee” by Ewok Jorduman

            Bee populations throughout the world, and particularly in the United States and Europe, are dropping rapidly and mysteriously.  The fate of bees, generally, is a matter of concern these days.  But why are bees so important? 

            Agricultural production.  Without the bees’ unique service as pollinators, the value of yearly agriculture output would drop by billions of dollars.  But dollars aren’t the worst part of the problem. 

            Agricultural production is food.  Without bees, we would have less food than we need to feed the Earth’s population.  So, without bees, a substantial number of people on earth will begin to starve – quickly. 

            But beyond their important place in the food chain, bees seem to continue to attract even more interest. This insect’s amazing sense of smell, much more acute than a dog’s, has already lead to technologies that allow bees to be used to sniff out drugs at airports and, even, detect diseases in human beings.

            And, then, DARPA became interested in bees.  DARPA?  Yes, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the United States Department of Defense.

           Why? 

            Drones.  Not the bee kind of drone – a male bee — but a mechanical a drone.  More precisely, flying drones.  DARPA is trying to build a drone that is about size of a bee.  Small objects can go where large objects can’t.  The applications are obvious.  An insect-sized drone would be invaluable not just in surveillance and reconnaissance but, also, in search and rescue. 

            But couldn’t DARPA model its mini-drones after another insect?  In other words, when it comes to designing flying drones, what’s so special about bees?  The special thing about bees is that, among their fellow insects, they are the virtuosos of flight.  Bees can fly faster than most other insects.  Also, they can fly slower (hover) in a way that most other insects cannot.  In flight, bees maneuver with a precision almost unparalleled in the insect world.  If you were DARPA and wanted to develop an insect-sized flying drone, you’d want its capabilities to be as close to those of a bee as possible.

            Harvard’s “Micro Air Vehicles Project” is working on the developing a robot that is intended to duplicate the functions of a honeybee.  This robot became a sensation when it was announced that Robo-Bee could fly.  But the word “fly” was, and is, used in the most restricted and technical sense. 

            For most of the last few years, Robo-Bee has been able to flap its wings, and rise into the air – “fly.”  However, when it does, it shoots from its starting position across the room and crashes into the nearest wall.  Flight over.  Total flight time – about a second.

            But now researchers have figured out how to guide Robo-Bee in flight.  Now, with the latest guidance breakthrough, the robo-bee can be made “to pitch and roll in a predetermined direction” and, then, . . . it crashes into the nearest wall.

            While researchers are working on Robo-Bee’s flight, you’ve got to wonder whose working on the crashes?  Put another way, Robo-Bee crashes because it can’t land.  And landing is the most challenging maneuver of successful flight.  What insect, do you suppose, displays the most precise and graceful skill in landing?  You guessed it.  Landing is one of the bee’s most amazing abilities.

            Not only are bees remarkable for how they land, but where they land sets them apart from other airborne insects as well.  Bees can land anywhere – not just on flat surfaces but, also, on irregular, ridged, and vertical surfaces.  Still, knowing that the bees “can do it” is one thing.  Understanding “how they do it” is another.

            But bees can do something most other flying insects can’t.  They can land almost anywhere smoothly.  In order to land smoothly, a flying object must slow down almost to a stop at the landing location.  So, landing isn’t just about the bee putting its, er, ah, . . . feet (or whatever) onto the ground.  Landing is about speed and distance. 

            To do it right, you have to estimate your distance from the place you intend to land and vary your speed so that you have just about stopped by the time you reach your intended landing spot.  At least, you have to do all this if you want the bee’s characteristically smooth landing.  A crash is a landing too.  Just not a smooth one.

            In the old days, human pilots made these estimations using nothing more than their vision.  As human beings, we have two eyes set slightly apart.  Each eye relays a slightly different image to the brain.  Our brain compensates so that we “see” only one image.  But, without even realizing it, the slight differences in the two images are translated by the brain into an awareness of the relative distances of the objects around us. 

            Everything from navigating around objects in our home to driving on the roads would present difficulties, and even dangers, without our “stereo” vision.  And, with nothing more than this vision, aviators used to gage their speed relative to the distance of the chosen landing strip.  Then, they would try to bring their aircraft to as slow a speed as possible at the point at which the landing gear made first contact with the ground.

            However, pilots don’t use plain old vision these days.  Sophisticated computers estimate distances for professional pilots.  This can be done with or without the aid of global positioning signals.  Computers can use no more than bits of data, from radar and lasers, to estimate distance from the destination, direction, and speed.  With this information, an aircraft can be brought to the slowest possible speed at the moment the landing gear touch the ground.

            But bees don’t have the equivalent of human “stereoscopic” vision.  And they don’t have the benefit of computers.  So, how do the bees land so well?  The fact that bees seem to be able to land almost anywhere has provoked extensive study. 

            A new discovery about just how bees accomplish their remarkable landings has been reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  The process is surprisingly simple.  Professor Mandyam Srinivasan at the University of Queensland explains that bees “watch” an object, their destination, as they fly toward it.  As they approach their intended landing place, the visual image of the place seems to get bigger.  Just how fast the image of the destination seems to increase in size, tells the bee when to slow down and stop.  However unfamiliar this method must seem to human beings, it allows bees to make almost perfect landings most of the time without any other information about distance or speed.

            Professor Srinivasan uses an analogy from the kind of simulated space travel you might see in a computer game or even a “stars” screen saver.  As you approach a particular star, two things happen.  First, the other stars around your destination seem to move away.  And, second, your destination star appears to become larger.  

            In bees, nature has used these simple observations to create an amazing navigation and flight system.  And researchers have been able to reduce the bees’ landing strategy to a mathematical model for guiding landings.  This “vision-based system” needs nothing more sophisticated than a video camera of the type “found in smart phones.”

            An insect-sized mini-drone would not need radar, sonar or laser beams to determine surface speed and distances for landing.  Dropping this expensive equipment would not only make the mini-drone cheaper, but the lighter weight would extend the drone’s range.  Best of all, losing the radar, sonar, and laser beams eliminates detectable electronic signatures, which could make this tiny drone “visible” – detectable to tracking technologies.

            Just using the bee as a model will allow an insect-sized mini-drone to, someday, make the perfect landing.  And, also, make mini-drone technology cheaper, extend its range of operation, and increase its “stealth.”  So, even DARPA is studying bees.

M Grossmann of Hazelwood, Missouri & Belleville, Illinois

2 October 201

About the Author