by Jonathan Sarfati
Honeybees fly with a remarkable agility that would be the envy of stunt pilots, yet their navigation ‘software’ is packed into a brain the size of a sesame seed. Now their techniques are being studied carefully at the All-Weather Bee-flight Facility at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. There are plans to use them in miniature flying robotic spies and unmanned planetary exploration probes.1
How bees navigate
Bees have airspeed gauges; gyroscopes; a ‘compass’ that detects the polarization of sunlight; UV sensors to track the horizon to measure tilt; and two compound eyes, each with 7,000 hexagonal (six-sided) facets. These facets are windows to sub-eyes called ommatidia, which are tiny tubes containing their own lens and light-detecting cells. Each tube points in a different direction, enabling vision over a wide area. The hexagonal shape is ideal. It uses as little edge-cell material as possible (which is why the honeycomb is also hexagonal), has the least sharp corners needing less reinforcement, and is the most symmetrical structure. Such eyes are superb for detecting motion, since a small shift means different facets detect the image.
