Honeybee flight dynamics and pair separation in windy conditions near the hive entrance

Abstract

Animals and living organisms are continuously adapting to changes in their environment. How do animals, especially those that are critical to their ecosystem, respond to rapidly changing conditions in their environment? Here, we report on the three-dimensional trajectories and orientations of flying honeybees under calm and windy conditions in front of the hive entrance. We find that the average speeds, accelerations and angular velocities of honeybees increase with increasing wind speeds. We observed that pair separation between honeybees is highly controlled and independent of wind speeds. Our results on the coordination used by honeybees may have potential applications for swarm intelligent manned and unmanned aerial vehicles.