Can bees "fly" a plane?

D

DaveD

Registered User
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Was watching the "Bee Movie" last night with my children and at one stage a plane is supported by bees and "flown" to the airport to land. Millions of them hold the underside of the plane, the engines are cut and they fly it in to land.

Now, before writing to Dreamworks about any inaccuracies that their may have been, would anyone know how much a bee can lift and how many would be needed to lift an average passenger jet? I cannot identify the type of jet but it wasn't a Boeing 747.

I realise that not all people may attach the same level of importance to this question!
 
I suppose it depends on how much weight an individual bee can carry (and still use his wings to fly). If you knew the answer to that and then found out the weight of a plane you could figure out if it is theoretically possible.
 
627,466,667 bees should be able to lift a fully loaded Boeing 737-300 ( about 90 milligrams each). Personally wouldn't like to be depending on them holding it up if I was an aircraft engineer working on the undercarriage though!
 
demoivre said:
627,466,667 bees should be able to lift a fully loaded Boeing 737-300 ( about 90 milligrams each). Personally wouldn't like to be depending on them holding it up if I was an aircraft engineer working on the undercarriage though!
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Thanks for that confirmation demoivre, seems like a lot of bees, is there actually enough surface area to fit that many bees underneath a 737-300, or would they have to double up?
 
I dont think they would be able to hold a plane up - their wings are on their backs, so if the plane was resting on them, they wouldnt be able to flap them.

You'd need to have them flying above the plane and pulling it with a micro rope.
 
csirl said:
I dont think they would be able to hold a plane up - their wings are on their backs, so if the plane was resting on them, they wouldnt be able to flap them.
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Could they not sort of prop it up on their noses and keep flapping away with the wings?
 
Anyway, imagine if the bees suddenly noticed a strange cloud formation in the shape of a massive flower? The plane would be rightly fecked then.
 
Caveat said:
Anyway, imagine if the bees suddenly noticed a strange cloud formation in the shape of a massive flower? The plane would be rightly fecked then.
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Don't think its the shape of the object they're attracted to, rather the colour. And I have to assume the bees in question are focused on the job in hand and not easily distracted.
 
flybe737300.jpg
 
I think I saw a Gary Larsen cartoon once where a giant fly/bee was, singlehandedly flying Concorde:D ........ and all the female passengers had beehive hairstyles.
 
csirl said:
I dont think they would be able to hold a plane up - their wings are on their backs, so if the plane was resting on them, they wouldnt be able to flap them.

You'd need to have them flying above the plane and pulling it with a micro rope.
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They would push their feet on the bottom of plane wings and body and fly upside down. Simple really :p
 
I'm getting the impression that people are not taking my query seriously!
 
demoivre said:
627,466,667 bees should be able to lift a fully loaded Boeing 737-300 ( about 90 milligrams each).
Click to expand...
It’s more than double this number: your calculation assumes a bee can carry its own weight of 90 milligrammes, but, AFAIK, the max amount of nectar a bee can carry is about 45% of its weight.
 
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