Aerial attack on my drone

[BokiFly]

Surprised they didn't pop open the battery compartment ... considering it seems like a small gust of wind might be able to do so.

It sure does. Someone said that battery compartment have just cosmetical purpose. What holds battery inside is the battery itself. I almost always have hard time to get it out.

 

[OneQuickSix]

It sure does. Someone said that battery compartment have just cosmetical purpose. What holds battery inside is the battery itself. I almost always have hard time to get it out.

I'm considering putting a piece of tape on it, but you're right ... the battery connection is definitely what is mostly keeping it there, lol.

 

[batman305]

Yesterday 19 June 2020 I sent my drone up about 120 feet altitude and it was attacked by a swarm of bees following my drone and just constantly attacking its surrounding it orbiting it. It was aat they would attack or follow I don’t know if they were talking or thinking it’s the queen bee but it was surprising to see that they were all around my my drone and it was a far away from any kind of obstacle or anything it was pretty high I sent it up twice for the same thing happened I got a picture of one of the beers that got cut up by one of the propellers

I had a similar but different story. I had a colony show up one day and enter my roof. I wouldn't have cared if its in a tree, but that in my roof will bring insects and mice etc. I tried to call all the local bee keepers to see if any of them wanted them and none of them could get access. So had to eliminate them. I wasn't able to get close enough to the hole to blast them with raid beer killer. So I flew my drone there to remove a bunch of them to be able to get closer. Worked really well. I'm sure now the hate responses will ensue

 

[skydeep]

Hello Skydeep,
Thanks for your posting. This has happened to me several times now but with different bees.
I have seen at least a dozen postings now of bees attacking drones.
I'm an entomology professor at the University of Arizona here in Tucson.
I study pollination ecology and also native soltiary ground-nesting bees, their nesting and
mating biology. Long story short, three times now in the past several months, I've had my
Mavic2 Pro attacked by male and female bees in the genus Centris (C. pallida and C. caesalpiniea).
Sadly, the Mavic acted like a flying Cuisinart. Many bees chopped to bits.

It could be visual and acoustic due to sound pressure waves they might be detecting. I lost my
Mavic last month due to a signal disconnect in some treacherous badlands. Did not retrieve it.
I have recordings of the bee wingbeat frequency (166Hz) and the Mavic sound which as you
might imagine is not as clean with lots of white noise and higher level harmonics. Next year I
plan to do some careful tests to see if the bees are atrracted visually or acoustically. If you
look at the bee literature, bees have been thought to be deaf to airborne sounds except at
very close range (I'm talking a few centimeters not many meters from a drone AC).

Your situation: Likely that you were flying in/near a DCA. That is a Drone Congregation Area.
Honey bee males (drones) fly to specific geographic sites and rapidly fly about 30 to 100 ft.
high in circular patterns. Whenever they spot a small dark spot (thinking it is a virgin queen)
they pursue it and mate if they can. The drone honey bees have upward looking holoptic
compound eyes. That way they can see a honey bee queen flying above them and chase her.

Best,
Steve

Did you get some shots?

 

[skydeep]

Wow! Highly interesting. Thanks for the scientific lesson. So, Professor, instead of chopping them all to bits and pieces, what would be the best approach for a pilot in the same situation to help prevent an already in bad shape species to become instinct faster by unaware and un-entomologist Junior drone pilot like me?

thank you steve for all the input , i do appreciate it. sorry for taking long to respond to your post. My specific incident happened right here where i live in Miami beach, Florida. Anyways thanks