Acrobatic Bees

Talk about agility.

When you watch a honey bee foraging, it's a lesson in aerial acrobatics.

She glides to her target flower, touching down gracefully and accurately. As she gathers nectar, she's vertical, horizontal, upside down and right side up again.

She's a circus performer, an Olympic gymnast and a ballet dancer, all rolled into one. She specializes in cartwheels, somersaults and pirouettes, coupled with head stands, hand stands and foot stands.  

In his research, neuroscientist Mandyam Srinivasan of the Queensland Brain Institute and the School of IT and Electrical Engineering found that bees slow to a hover about half an inch away from their target before they land.

Srinivasan marvels how the bee can detect moving targets, avoid collisions and land smoothly. 

All this, the professor says, has practical applications for robotics and unmanned aircraft.

Indeed. We can learn a lot from watching a foraging honey bee.