Bees are good friends of humans, and anyone who has observed bees closely knows that their wings appear small compared to the chubby bodies of bees, which is a cause for concern, bees have so small wings, can they really fly into the sky? And it turns out that our worries are superfluous, because not only can bees fly in the sky, but the flying technology is quite good.
The mystery of bee flight has puzzled people for a long time, according to early research, bees' wings can not produce enough lift no matter how they flap, it seems that bees do not comply with aerodynamics, so why can they fly? Could it be that bees don't have to obey aerodynamics?
The answer is of course no, the reason why this statement exists is actually because the early relevant theories are not perfect enough, and the model is not considered carefully enough, and with the development of science, modern aerodynamics has long unveiled the mystery of bee flight, let's take a look at how they fly into the sky.
The bee has two sets of wings, one in front and one in the back, on which are distributed lateral and longitudinal wing veins, which are cross-linked to each other, and there are some branching structures that provide effective mechanical support for the wings and firmly fix the thin to transparent wing membrane in it, while the leading edges of both sets of wings have a relatively strong area, which strengthens the ability of the bee's wings to penetrate the air.
As shown in the image above, the bee also has a special jagged structure at the edge of its forewings, which allows its forewings and hindwings to be more closely linked, allowing the bees to gain more power as they fly.
In addition, bees also have very fine hairy structures on their wings, depending on the location, their species, length and density are different, and related studies have shown that these hairy structures are aerodynamic, and they can help bees make better use of air currents when flying.
The muscles that bees use to fly are located within their chest cavity and can be divided into two types, one can be called "direct muscles", these muscles are directly attached to the wings, they can allow the bees to manipulate a wing alone, so that it moves forward and backwards, left and right, and when these muscles cooperate with each other, they can make the bee's wings rotate and can also cause it to have a certain degree of distortion.
The other can be called "indirect muscles", these muscles are not directly connected to the wings, but attached to the "direct muscles", "indirect muscles" can be divided into vertical and horizontal groups, the former from the top of the bee chest cavity to the bottom, when it contracts, will make the bee's wings up, the latter from the front of the bee chest cavity to the back, when it contracts, will make the bee's wings down.
Thanks to the insect's unique respiratory system, these two sets of "indirect muscles" of the bee can be contracted and relaxed at high frequencies, and when they work together, the bee's wings can vibrate at a very high speed, and their frequencies can be as high as 200 times per second. By the way, the "buzzing" sound we hear from bees is actually produced when their wings vibrate at high speed.
The wings of the bee are not rigid, and during the flight, the wings of the bee can also move individually while vibrating at high speed, and can also be twisted and rotated, so that the air near the wings can be swirled, and the power of the bee to fly comes from this.
For example, in the process of the bee's wings vibrating downwards, the leading edge of the wings will quickly form a low-pressure zone, in this case, the air below will quickly pour into it, forming an air vortex and wrapping the bee in it, and in the process of the wings continuing to vibrate, this vortex will not fall off for a short time, so that the bee provides continuous lift, only need to slightly change the tilt of the wings, the bees can fly in the air.
In the process of horizontal flight, the bee's wings will form an "extended air flow" along the direction of the wingspan through special movements, which can make the air vortex at the leading edge of the wing not increase rapidly after formation, so that it will stay near the bee for a long time, which can help the bee to get lift during the translation process.
In addition, the bee's wings can also rotate 180 degrees axially around the direction of the wingspan (commonly known as "flipping over") during the process of changing in the direction of vibration (such as down to upward), which can increase the relative speed of air and wings, while also recovering part of the energy in the air vortex wake, so that the bee can get extra power.
In short, although the wings of bees look so small, their wings can constantly form air vortexes through high-speed vibrations, and by precisely controlling these air vortexes, bees can achieve a variety of flight needs.
From the above introduction, we can see that the so-called "bees do not comply with aerodynamics" is nothing more than the views put forward by people in the case of insufficient knowledge. Of course, even now, we still can't fully understand the mystery of bee flight, and we expect that in the future exploration, we can gain more knowledge.
Well, today we will talk about this first, welcome everyone to pay attention to us, we will see you next time'
(Some of the pictures in this article are from the Internet, if there is infringement, please contact the author to delete)