Honey Bee Landing Technique

The University of Queensland in Australia features an online article titled Bees show off the perfect landing. As it indicates bee landing on a flower is marked by a transition from speedy flight, comparable to an aircraft's movement, to the hovering more typical of helicopters. The bee landing is contrasted with that of a fly whose landing is described as a ‘controlled crash'. Also interesting is the analogy between the bee landing and the landing of a human pilot. Professor Mandyam Srinivasan noted the degree of difficulty for a human pilot. Yet bees routinely accomplish the feat.

Use of a high speed camera made possible a sequential breakdown in bee activity leading to a landing. Scientists observed bee antennae touch a surface prior to landing and this seems to trigger surface grasping by bee legs. The antennae role came as a surprise and pointed out the coordinated actions of visual identification, antennae surface touching and leg grasping in the act of landing.