From the Desk of Murray Lincoln: Billy the Bee and a Space Shuttle

High above the earth the Space Shuttle carries out its work. The very act of getting this great vehicle into orbit around the earth to do the work that it does gets great media fan fare. When the final moments of leaving the earth takes place cameras click wildly to capture the instant success of this great machine leaving the confines of its terrestrial ball.

It is amazing as to say the least – this idea of flight of something so large moving out against the odds of its size and weight and wind span.

Yesterday…

Yesterday while sitting on the front porch and listening to the world go by the familiar hum of a very large bumble bee came into our zone. It hummed happily around the large flower pots that hand from the edge of the porch.

I gave him the logical name of “Billy the Bee” and he has become one of our other pets now. He comes frequently to attend to his duties of messing with the flowers.

Recently when the cold air came rushing in during the evening I found him laying beside the van. He was moving but not very well so I picked him up and lifted him to the side of the driveway to rest out of the way of danger. The next morning he was up and at it again when the warm sun made movement easier.

As I watched him manoeuvre from flower to flower and then to the next pot it was amazing. Such ease and ability shown in this fuzzy ball of an insect! How does he do it?

When he finally landed it was again getting cool and my guess is his flying mechanism was tiring and slowing down again. But why wouldn’t it – he had been at it since early in the morning?

I had told the story about the Bee not being able to fly because of its weight and structure recently. I began to wonder if that story was true or not. So I did a little searching and Bingo… there was and answer or sorts.

From Ken Zetie… quote…
But how did the myth about bees not being able to fly start? When does the story date back to? J McMasters states that the story was prevalent in the German technical universities in the 1930s, starting with the students of the aerodynamicist Ludwig Prandtl at Gottingen. The story goes that a noted Swiss aerodynamicist, whom McMasters does not name, was talking to a biologist at dinner. The biologist asked about the flight of bees and the Swiss gentleman did a "back-of-the-napkin" calculation of the kind I described earlier, assuming a rigid, smooth wing and so on. Of course, he found that there was insufficient lift and went off to find out the correct answer.

In the meantime, the biologist put the word around that bees could not fly, presumably to show that nature was greater than engineering, and the media picked up the story. The truth, then as now, wasn't newsworthy, so a correction was never publicized. The people I meet, therefore, continue to tell me that science is a load of crock because it once proved that bumblebees cannot fly. And they will not hear otherwise, especially not from a scientist.
End quote…

Ken Zetie did offer a great explanation… quote…
So how do bees fly then? And why do they need to flap their wings while jumbo jets don't? These turn out to be very interesting questions that reveal a lot of physics. Jumbo jets have fixed wings because their wing area and speed are large enough to satisfy the lift equations for flight. But the small wings on a bumble-bee are much less efficient. Coupled with low speeds and the high drag on a wing when flapping, it might appear, at first glance, that insects cannot fly and that most birds can't get off the ground either.

However, some brilliant work by Torkel Weis-Fogh, professor of zoology at Cambridge University in the 1970s, showed us how small insects fly. His ideas also lead to some rather neat insights into nature's cunning. An insect's wing works by encouraging air to flow over it in such a way that when the air leaves the rear edge of the wing it moves downwards. The resultant eddy produces an upwards thrust on the wing. Unfortunately, it takes time to make a good eddy, and the wing has to move a distance a few times its length to get things started. This makes it tricky if you are going to flap, as the maximum travel of a wing is roughly its length and very little lift is generated for most of the stroke.
Nature has come up with a number of interesting solutions to this problem, of which the "clap-fling" is a good example.
When a small bird or insect wants to take off, it needs a lot of lift. It therefore brings its wings together above its back so that they clap, expelling air from between them. When the wings then separate, air is quickly drawn in to fill the void. The wings are flung apart and lift is immediately generated because the air is already moving in the correct way. You can even hear the clap, for example, in the characteristic whirring of a pheasant taking off. Almost 2000 years ago Virgil recorded in The Aeneid that a rock dove claps its wings as it takes off. (In fact he stole the passage from Homer, but added the bit about the clapping.)
End quote…

Now I feel better…
The rocket that takes the Space Shuttle’s massive weight is big enough that it explodes to break all the gravitational pull on it to keep it on earth. When it leaves there is a might roar or air turbulence.

The Bumble Bee simply beats the air around his wings until lift is created… breaking the gravitational pull on its body. the resultant hum is likely some of the clapping and wind turbulence that is created. Every time he flies he creates a small tornado.

(My contention is that the Bee can still beat the Space Shuttle in a proportionate race. But that is another thought rolling around.)

What is important about my story today? Bees? Space Shuttle? Nope – neither matter that much to me.

What is important is the front porch after a warm day of “doing”… I simply sat and did my “being”… by doing nothing.

I love that front porch and the peace that comes there. The sun is setting on the other side of the house where it is quite warm. The porch side is cool, quiet and my place of solitude. The Bee’s hum was the only thing that breaks that reverie.

This morning I slipped out early to meet the Sun again. He arrived on time and my world began again.

For 10 years of doing in Peterborough I was too busy to sit and listen. People stuff clouded good days and bad days – and brought both together. Now I can sit and listen… to what was there all the time.

What was I thinking? I should have retired 9 years and 364 days ago!

This is all good… very, very good. I’m loving it!

~ Murray Lincoln ~
http://www.murraylincoln.com/