The Bumblebee

According to scientists, the bumblebee’s body is too heavy and its wing span too small. Aerodynamically speaking, the bumblebee cannot fly. But the bumblebee doesn’t know that and it keeps flying.


When you don’t know your limitations, you go out and surprise yourself. In hindsight, you wonder if you had any limitations. The only limitations a person has are those that are self-imposed.

Bumblebees have round bodies covered in soft hair called pile, making them appear and feel fuzzy. Like their relatives, the honeybees, bumblebees feed on nectar, using their long hairy tongues to lap up the liquid; the proboscis is folded under the head during flight. Bumblebees gather nectar to add to the stores in the nest, and pollen to feed their young. They forage using colour and spatial relationships to identify flowers to feed from. Bumblebees are important agricultural pollinators, so their decline in Europe, North America, and Asia is a cause for concern. The decline has been caused by habitat loss, mechanisation of agriculture, and pesticides.