Flight - A Brief Overview The old myth that bumblebees shouldn’t be able to fly was bred in the early 1900’s just shortly after the Wright Brothers succeeded with the first powered flight. These early theories suggested that bumblebee wings were too small to create sufficient lift. But since then, scientists have made huge advances in understanding the aerodynamics surrounding the flight of a bumblebee. (Image credit: How do Planes Fly?, https://www.explainthatstuff.com/howplaneswork.html) The dynamics of bumblebee flight are different than those that allow a plane to fly. While an airplane’s wings are shaped so that the air moves faster over the top, creating a difference in air pressure between the top and bottom of the wing to generate lift, bees sweep their wings in a partial spin, generating a similar force of lift but in a slightly different way. (image credit: American Physical Society, https://physics.aps.org/articles/v13/60) Rather than being like a propeller, the rotational flapping of the wings, and the angle at which they are bent, create vortices in the air, sort of like small “hurricanes.” The “eyes” of these “hurricanes” have a lower pressure than the air on the outside. By keeping the eddies of air atop their wings, a bee is able to maintain lift even while carrying a load of heavy pollen.