Of Bees and Pilots — Wolds Gliding Club

During the recent warm days we've been watching the local flying here on the Wolds, well to be honest, mostly the honey bees flying in and out of the beehive in the field. The more that we watch them though, the more that they remind us of glider and power pilots…

Let me explain a little more. During the winter there are only a small number of bees in the hive. These are the longer lived "Winter bees" who are there to keep the queen and central hive warm, and also to get the flying going in the spring. They tend to take a seemingly dismissive look outside on a mild late winter day at the hive entrance, turn around back inside the hive (briefing room) and sit around keeping warm probably talking about the really good flights they had last summer; eating and wondering when the good weather will turn up so that they can get flying again. Bees start preparing for the flying season as soon as the days start getting longer at the Winter solstice and aim to start building up their club membership from then on to about fifty thousand by mid-summer so they have their work cut out.

Early in the spring the newly hatched ab initio bees are kept inside the hive where they have to learn all the ground school work before being allowed to fly outside. They collect the pollen and nectar from the foragers that have flown in, stock the storerooms, do the feeding and cleaning, and hopefully learn about flying whilst keeping out of the way of the queen until the day they are allowed to do a decent flight. We haven't found the briefing room whiteboard yet but it's probably only a matter of time. We should also mention that the bees elect a female CFI who in our case is a good natured north Yorkshire lass.

The early solo bees are only allowed to fly near the hive and these are the twenty or so guard bees. They zoom around in erratic circuits being avoided by the long distance foragers and can be seen to land out occasionally near the hive apparently worn out from their exertions. After a while they take a re-launch and you can see them trying to find the hive entrance with differing levels of success. They are supposed to be there to warn off the powerful yellow and black wasps (Eurofox?) but the wasps only get really interested in the hive later in the flying season when presumably some of them need to keep up their hours.

Hornets are thankfully very rare and are the unfriendly Apache helicopter gunships of this small hive based World.

There are a very small number of bees who work inside and outside the hive patching the place up with something called propolis. These highly individual, specialist technicians use a resin based repair kit that they acquire from plants and trees and you can see them earnestly searching for and patching any small hole that they can find around the hive. They are probably muttering to themselves about the state that the others have left the kit in and leaving them to fix it, which they always do. Propolis is a red-orange colour, a resin that can glue even large parts of the hive together and if you get some on your clothes it will never come off!

Bees use the sun to navigate (GPS?) and can use distinctive local features such as large buildings and hedges when near the hive to find their way back home. New bees do orientation fights near the hive when they first start distance flights so even bees like to do a few site checks before they get down to some serious flying.

These more experienced bee pilots become the foragers who on good days will set off on sometimes epic cross country task flights of two or three miles distant. If you think on a scale of perhaps 200:1, glider to bee by length, that would scale the flight up to a 400 mile out and return and it's wise to stay well out of the flight line at the entrance since these are very determined, single minded bees who will let you know if you get in their way. Some could be on their second or third flight of the day and each one has been given pheramone instructions to bring back pollen, nectar or occasionally water to the hive. The departing bees launch out of the hive entrance gaining height at a good approximation of the required forty-five degree angle, alter their heading to clear any hedges and trees and cruise, usually around tree or hedge top height, lower if it's windy. Some will spiral up to gain height whereas others will take a more leisurely slalom type course outward probably admiring the local scenery and planning to stay nearer the hive. These have presumably decided to enjoy an easier more local task or are taking a more relaxed flight and are not at all bothered about winning any badges or points.

On the colder days the long distance foragers will land out and even spend the night out if it's not too cold. However if any rain threatens, even a shower, they will head back to the hive en masse. Bees and glider pilots are both good indicators of rain or heavy showers around locally. The larger bumble bees seem to mind the rain less, sound like they are equipped with large engines and are presumably cleared for instrument flying.

If it's really windy at say twenty knots or more, we see the foragers on their return flights keeping really low hugging the ground, not unlike a long final glide home trying to make it back to the hive and getting blown off course as they make urgent heading corrections.

The experienced foragers will try for clean straight in final approaches to the hive entrance landing board (no collisions observed and presumably keeping a good lookout), though if they are heavily laden with pollen (ballast?) they don't seem to have the same easy control as the lighter bees. To watch them is to see a good example of why it's probably best not to land aerodynamically compromised but they are far too busy to listen to us when we mention it to them.

On the better warm days we see some of the returning bees doing an excited "bee dance" after a really good cross country. They waggle their antennae, shake their bodies and dance around in circles excitedly trying to draw attention to themselves and tell the other (presumably more locally flying) bees just how great the food at other distant fields is, how far they have been and in which direction. Some of the locals will crowd around them with interest, others appear to ignore them and a few will then head off to try it out for themselves. How many of those landout later and then spend the rest of the day muttering about their colleagues' overhyped flights we don't know but we can certainly imagine it.

Occasionally the hive gets visiting pilots in the form of drones from other hives who will drop in to cadge a meal from the hive workers before heading back from where they came. The hive is nearly all female and these few male drones will mostly hang around eating until the females refuse them food and kick them out again, probably with pointed remarks about it being a flying club and not a restaurant. Their only interests are sex, food and flying, and probably in that order.

Bee swarms have all the feel of a competition to us. The reason for it is a little different in that swarming means the bees are outgrowing their original airfield and need a new one, however to make the move they use a small number of their best pilots called "scouts" to check the conditions and find the new one. The workers have the excellent idea of putting the CFI (queen) on a diet prior to the move so that she can fly well to the new site but conversely the workers then celebrate the small success of reversing the annual check tables by having a party and stuffing themselves with honey the day before departure. (Evening comp entertainment? This might have merit for us glider pilots and we're sure could be implemented at the next comp). Consequently when the bees leave the hive they are in a pretty relaxed, laid back mood and will contentedly hang around until the scout bees bring back news of the new potential airfields. It has all the feel of waiting for the right conditions on a potentially good day. Once the scouts declare the conditions are good then they all find their focus and launch into the wild blue yonder including the now super slim CFI.

Finally at the end of a long summer day it's pleasant to sit lazily by the hive and watch the last of the stragglers work their way home; they come in low and weary and land in, probably with a sigh of relief, "Well I was only six inches over that field over there and thought that was it for the day but just managed to find that last little bit of lift..".

If it's a very hot evening in late summer many of the bees will crowd outside on the landing board and hive side, humming quietly and we like to think they are sharing tales of their most intrepid flights and having the bee equivalent of a well earned pint.

Safe virtual flying,

Mark