Awesome Bees

Festo specializes in robots that utilize biomimicry, or otherwise machines that move like their animal counterparts. Their BionicBee is an ultralight flying robot that takes inspiration from bees and can fly in a swarm indoors or out. It flies by flapping its wings, which can pitch and roll. Where was this bee drone when Corridor made this video?

There’s a real camera out there that’s the size of a grain of sand. But for this video, the guys from Corridor didn’t strap one of these technological marvels to a bee. Nope, they used a drone and their visual effects skills instead, giving us a fun bee’s-eye perspective on the world as the apian buzzes around. See how they made the clip in the Behind-the-scenes video.

Bees are an important part of our ecosystem, pollinating the plants that give us food and making their own delicious honey. Ze Frank explains how intelligent these insects are despite their tiny brains. They not only know how to make perfect hexagons for their hives, they can be trained to solve puzzles and simple math problems when motivated.

At first glance, you might think this was a painting of a hummingbird. But it is neither a painting nor a hummingbird. Hit play on the video, and you’ll see what we mean. Artist Thomas Deininger creates these incredible mixed media sculptures of birds, bees, and other animals that defy expectations when viewed from any angle other than straight on.

Nature filmmaker Lothar Lenz is an expert at capturing macro footage of insects. In this video, we get to watch some hornets competing with a colony of ants for a drink of water. The incredible audio recording puts you right there in the action. The ants get a little feisty in this other video.

Lazer Lizard Designs makes these unique drink coasters inspired by honey bees and their hives. Each coaster is crafted from laser-cut wood filled with a smooth epoxy resin that looks like honey. The price shown here is for a set of four with a matching holder, but they also sell them in other quantities.

Rowan Atkinson stars as a bumbling housesitter in this slapstick comedy series about a man who will go to any lengths to get rid of a pesky bee that got into his client’s house. We’re guessing that the bee wins. Premieres 6.24.22 on Netflix.

In the universe of living things, you might think that insects were pretty low in the pecking order. But as TierZoo points out, the individual abilities, collective mindset, and genetic makeup of bees, ants, and wasps make them some of the most impressive creatures on the planet.

Nature can be pretty amazing. Take, for example, how this hive of honeybees discourages predators like wasps from attacking. Multiple layers of bees form a protective shield on the outside of their honeycomb and move in synchronized patterns that make the whole hive look like it’s one big creature.

Macrofying takes us on a deep dive inside of a single cell in a honeycomb to see what bees see… and even what they can’t as they work their macro zoom magic all the way down to the microscopic level. We’re pretty sure those are individual sugar crystals there at the end.

We all know that bees make their honeycombs by creating nearly perfect hexagonal cells. But why is that they chose hexagons to do their building? CGP Grey looks into the power and strength of this basic six-sided form, especially when it comes to tiling efficiency.

If you’ve ever seen a beehive up close, you know how its made up of hundreds of nearly perfect hexagonal cells. Why is that, and how do bees know how to make such perfect geometry? TED-Ed provides a brief explanation of this strange intersection of evolutionary biology and architecture.

We all know that bees make a buzzing sound when they fly about. But electronic musician Bioni Samp knows there’s way more subtlety to the sounds they produce. To create his music, he records and processes these bee sounds, along with others made from the resistive properties of their honey. From Great Big Story.

This LEGO construction by The Quinten is the most charming and adorable thing we’ve seen this week. The mechanical build features a beehive structure with some googly-eyed bees buzzing around as its crank is turned. The project is currently seeking support on LEGO Ideas, and we’d love to see it put into production.

National Geographic photographer Anand Varma captured this incredible macro time-lapse footage of the early stages of life a bee goes through in its hive, from a worm-like white larva to a fuzzy, flying insect. More here.

Etsy shop Dilnahammer makes ready-to-mount wooden homes for birds and other animals. One of the shop’s most popular products are honeycomb cell “hotels” for bees, ladybugs and other small insects. They come in different combinations and colors.