Recently, videos have started appearing on the internet showing bees in the dark instantly falling out of the air when the lights are turned off. In addition, bees do not make this fall gracefully, as soon as the lights go out, they suddenly stop and fall to the ground uncontrollably.
The latest video was shared by Hamish Symington, a PhD student in pollination, flowers and food safety at the University of Cambridge in England, and shows a group of bees displaying the same behaviors seen in previous videos.
Here’s another video of bees falling out of the sky when the lights go out. I’m surprised it’s an on/off choice for them – no graceful trying to glide to land or anything like that, they literally just stop flying and plummet. Surely that’s more dangerous than keeping flying? Bastard. twitter. com/TotxihLywQ
— Hamish Symington (@HamishSymington) December 3, 2021
Scientists are not entirely sure about the reason for this behavior and how it gives bees an advantage. A few ideas have been put forward, but there is little research in this area and there are only a few examples of this happening.
One commenter on Reddit suggests that this could be a “wandering locking mechanism” that allows the hive swarm to immediately lock its position in case of sudden weather changes. After the bad weather has passed, they can return to their hives in stormy conditions without the risk of being swept away to an unknown location. This may also be linked to how the bees use the Sun’s position to get back into the hive, so when the Sun drops below the horizon they may immediately stop moving.
Another theory proposes that this is a prey response, where the shadow of a large predator falling on them causes the bees to stop flying and fall to the ground where they have less chance of being detected.
Either way, this event can be said to be quite impressive. It also points to an interesting detail when the doctoral student said in an earlier tweet: “One of the funniest sounds I know: the sound of a hundred bees falling from the sky when I turn off the lights in the bee room.”
While they are mostly tropical species, it is worth mentioning that some bees have adapted to fly at night, probably because there is less competition with other pollinators.
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