Cool fact #1: Honeybees flap their wings around 250 times per second.
To give that some perspective, if you work out the math on it….carry the 2…divide by 4….that comes out to really fast.
If you would like some tangible idea of how fast that really is, the average time it takes you to blink your eye is 1/3rd of a second, during which time a honeybee has flapped its wings over 80 times.
Cool fact #2: Watching bees fly in ultra slow-motion has a calming, zen-like effect.
This video is a couple of years old (which means none of you thought to tell us about it, even though we’ve been known to appreciate videos of bees flying in slow motion), and the footage came from a documentary that was being made using the Phantom v2511 camera, which can shoot up to <Dr. Evil voice> one million frames per second.
In this video, set to what else but “Flight of the Bumblebee,” we get to see flying bees at speeds of 1,000 frames-per-second (fps), 16,000 fps, 25,000 fps, 70,000 fps, and finally a super slow motion 150,000 fps.
(If you’re curious how many frames-per-second we see in life, well we already got you covered. Spoiler: it’s not that impressive.)
There’s something mesmerizing about this footage, something soothing. I also feel a little like Fry after drinking 100 cups of coffee. Plus, when viewed like this they almost seem more like cute little birds and not pesky bugs with stingers.
What other member of the animal kingdom would you like to see moving in super slow motion? Buzz into our comments section below to let us know.
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Images: michiganshooter/YouTube