Reasons are still unknown regarding the behavior of honeybees mid-air. The first comprehensive study ever made to investigate why the insects zoom in flight was carried out by German behavioral expert Martin Lindauer and Austrian entomology specialist Herbert Heran in 1963.
How Honeybees Fly
Honeybees fly around a beehive in Seligenstadt, central Germany, on May 11, 2016.
During this research, the honeybees were trained to fly over specific surfaces and observed their behavioral response to each setup. It was shown that the insects could only cross the water body and into the other side only if the lake had active ripples and waves on its surface.
Compared to a moving lake surface, mirror-smooth water posed a challenge for the honeybees. When the insects attempted to cross this motionless water body, most of them lost altitude and crashed directly to the glass-looking surface.
This research concluded that honeybees heavily rely on visual cues when they fly and navigate through the air. Lindauer and Heran's paper was published in the journal.
Journal of Comparative Physiology, titled "Wind compensation and cross wind correction of bees when flying over water."
Researchers conducted a new study on the animals to learn more about honeybees and their flight, including the factors that influence their flight and how they regulate their altitudes over surfaces.
In the new study, the authors conducted an experiment that parallels what Lindauer and Heran processed in the first honeybee flight investigation. The authors of the recent experiment utilized a rectangular tunnel that scales to 220 centimeters, Science Alert reports.
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Mirrors Influence Altitude of Honeybees During Flight
They placed the structure in an outdoor area, with mirrors on its ceiling and the floor surface. Each wall could be customized depending on the scenario needed for the analysis.
When the platform's mirrors were covered, the group of honeybees was able to fly from one side of the tunnel and get their treats on the other point. The insects performed the task at a near-constant altitude during the covered mirror setup.
In another scenario, the honeybees also made it across the platform when the mirrors of the tunnel's ceiling were revealed, making the structure's height seem higher. Lastly, the honeybees became hesitant about keeping their altitudes when the experts revealed the mirrors on the flooring of the tunnel.
When the floor mirrors were exposed, the honeybees began to fall and crash. At about 40 centimeters from the starting point, the bees lost their altitudes. When both the ceiling and floor mirrors were revealed, the insects flew at an average of only eight centimeters from take off.
The findings were linked to spatial orientation, which also affects even human aviators. The lack of data on ground speed disorients pilots, swaying them away from their supposed altitudes.
The authors concluded that the honeybees lose their altitude during the flight when the ventral optic flow is absent. This strengthens the evidence that bees use their visual cues to perform their flying abilities, and it relies mostly on the distance from the ground rather than the sky.
When the baseline, or the ground, is awkward, the bees drop their altitudes to realign their ventral optic flow, and this causes them to crash unwantedly due to the illusion that clear surfaces project.
The study was published in Biology Letters, titled "Floor and ceiling mirror configurations to study altitude control in honeybees."
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