Insects and drones

[Red_Pyro]

Greetings everyone,

So the other day I went to do some casual flight and flew just over a field with high grass, when I started noticing my MM being escorted by bugs everywhere it went. Tried to shake them off, but those suckers were following close by. Needless to say at the end of the flight I had a new red/green skin on my drone.

I have 2 questions related to this event which I can't seem to find an answer in other threads:

Can insects cause any trouble to the drone at all ? They're mostly getting ripped into pieces by the rotors anyway
What is the biological reason behind the insects following it ? Do they think my MM is some kind of overlord because of the rotor sound ?

 

[old man mavic]

apart from the mess they make to the props and outside of the drone,they could if enough of them found their way into the motors cause issues ,also the larger flying beetles with hard wing cases could damage a prop especially near the thinner tips it probably is the sound that attracts or the frequency of that sound

 

[Simone L]

Greetings everyone,

So the other day I went to do some casual flight and flew just over a field with high grass, when I started noticing my MM being escorted by bugs everywhere it went. Tried to shake them off, but those suckers were following close by. Needless to say at the end of the flight I had a new red/green skin on my drone.

I have 2 questions related to this event which I can't seem to find an answer in other threads:

Can insects cause any trouble to the drone at all ? They're mostly getting ripped into pieces by the rotors anyway
What is the biological reason behind the insects following it ? Do they thing my MM is some kind of overlord because of the rotor sound ?

Greetings everyone,

So the other day I went to do some casual flight and flew just over a field with high grass, when I started noticing my MM being escorted by bugs everywhere it went. Tried to shake them off, but those suckers were following close by. Needless to say at the end of the flight I had a new red/green skin on my drone.

I have 2 questions related to this event which I can't seem to find an answer in other threads:

Can insects cause any trouble to the drone at all ? They're mostly getting ripped into pieces by the rotors anyway
What is the biological reason behind the insects following it ? Do they thing my MM is some kind of overlord because of the rotor sound ?

Insect Overload...love it!

 

[itsneedtokno]

Could an insect be trapped in my motor, causing a vibration that eventually causes a gimbal overload?

 

[Lets Fly]

Could an insect be trapped in my motor, causing a vibration that eventually causes a gimbal overload?

I get evidence of insects on my props quite often. In my videos i most often get honey bees doing loops around the drone two or three times and then they leave. The buzzing of the Mavic Air seems to attract
them the most. Birds also circle but for different reasons. I do not believe with the rotor wash and prop speed that any insect could enter the motor housing in most situations.
Possibly in sport mode with the increased forward speed, but unlikely. We have some pretty big dragon flies here in Florida, but they seem to stay away.

 

[itsneedtokno]

I get evidence of insects on my props quite often. In my videos i most often get honey bees doing loops around the drone two or three times and then they leave. The buzzing of the Mavic Air seems to attract
them the most. Birds also circle but for different reasons. I do not believe with the rotor wash and prop speed that any insect could enter the motor housing in most situations.
Possibly in sport mode with the increased forward speed, but unlikely. We have some pretty big dragon flies here in Florida, but they seem to stay away.

Right, I'm wondering if one got under my prop, into the motor housing, and is causing balance issues.

 

[Flycaster]

Yupperz, they can make a mess, I try to stay away from bugs and birds......

Years ago I was flying my Schluter Magic rc Heli, just hover practice, then I happened to spy with my little eye, a swarm of "no-see-ums"? just kind of hovering too, not moving or anything....
So what did I do? Oh yeah, I gently slid and hovered my Magic underneath the little suckers, and guess what?
They just disappeared...boom, just like that......until I landed.....my poor little Magic was just covered in little bug bodies, everywhere, from nose to tail rotor, took me 2 days to clean it...
Never did that again......
Nope

 

[ajaxflysquare]

I get dragon flies chasing my MP all the time. I assume its the hum.

 

[Romonaga]

Greetings everyone,

So the other day I went to do some casual flight and flew just over a field with high grass, when I started noticing my MM being escorted by bugs everywhere it went. Tried to shake them off, but those suckers were following close by. Needless to say at the end of the flight I had a new red/green skin on my drone.

I have 2 questions related to this event which I can't seem to find an answer in other threads:

Can insects cause any trouble to the drone at all ? They're mostly getting ripped into pieces by the rotors anyway
What is the biological reason behind the insects following it ? Do they thing my MM is some kind of overlord because of the rotor sound ?

My P4 is lovingly known as the Bug wacker, for years I have been clean bug splatter off of it. I have never experienced any harm, but then again I always cleaned it after flight. Was always concerned with bug splatter buildup on the props. M2P, have not noticed it killing bugs oddly enough.

 

[Rchawks]

?

 

[dronerdave]

I had some issues with splatter over the bottom sensors and saw it was bees that had swarmed me. I had videoed an almond orchard in bloom and the hives were out.

 

[ChrisOutdoors]

Clicked here thinking you were going to discuss this:
Skip to 51sec... ?

 

[dronerdave]

Clicked here thinking you were going to discuss this:
Skip to 51sec... ?

Not quite! Around here hives are in wood boxes. Domesticated bees, not them things. But interesting video to say the least. One way to get rid of a problem....chop the hive off.

 

[rehkram]

Beekeepers know why. Honey bees attracted to your craft are most likely males. Male honey bees are called drones, coincidentally.

So what happens is this. A new queen flies to areas known as "drone aggregation zones" to mate, one time early in her life. She mates with many, many of the (bee) drones, accumulating enough semen to lay many, many hundreds of thousands of eggs throughout her 3- or 4 year life in the hive.

Nobody seems to know how both the drones and the queen know where this meetup will take place. I keep bees by the way but they won't tell me.

It's fun to imagine what might be going on in the poor confused male bee's mind when it encounters a quadcopter. What a buzz that must be, right before the lights go out.

 

[Lionfish]

Funny story about Honey Beeez .

My wife and I have a modest honey farm up here in Alberta.
She is the expert and I am the and I’m the trusty assistant/grunt , and yes that’s printed on my bee suit .

Well last summer I was flying my own drone , a Parrot Anafi (big mistake ) , so I thought I’ll go take some video and pictures of some of our hives as the boss lady does bee presentations to library’s and schools etc .

Well I was about 200 m from the hives lining up my aerial views of one group of hives , so that worked out ok .
So then I started to walk up closer to the hives to get some
closer footage and as I got closer I could hear this ticking noise quite fast so I figured it must be my drone ticking for whatever the issue was .
So I brought it down to see what was up and as it lowered to eye height (don’t worry at a safe distance of course ) to figure out the strange noise was , all of a sudden bees by the hundreds or thousands ( bee counting isn’t my strong point ) just came from the hives and started to attack my drone .
So then it dawned on me where the mysterious ticking was coming from .
Not having my bee armour on I beat a hasty retreat , really they weren’t interested in me but they were defending their homes .
I called back The Anafi as I was running away but the bees kept coming so half way home completely exhausted we got back to the launch point and the majority of the bees had returned home or had been liquidized.
My drone landed and the angriest bees disappeared almost as fast as the props stopped .

Of course my Anafi was just thick with miscellaneous bee parts and dripping in bee juice .
I figured the same thing many of you mentioned that it was the noise that affected them and saw it as big as it was to be a very real threat to their livelihood, so they went full out to kill the mechanical beast in great numbers .

Well after quite some effort I scraped and washed of the bee glue on my drone and it lived to.fly an other day ( for a while anyways) .

So the pitch or whine from either the blades or motors must have duplicated a bee eating hornet or similar flying insect .

Oh and I never mentioned it to my Bee boss / wife , so nobody tell her please . I might get demoted , oh I am all ready at the very bottom of the pay grade .

So if you see any bee hives when you’re out flying keep you distance. !!!! You have been warned !!!.

I guess different models of drones may produce different noise patterns , or they could all bee very similar because of the motors and props being similar.
I should do some testing to see what drones affect the bees the most all for the advancement of science of course .
Anybody care to donate to the cause , new models preferred , like a new Mavic air would be an essential test candidate.

Remember don’t fly too high unless over bees and their hives .

 

[Romonaga]

OK but this sounds like many bees died. Bet wife was not impressed.

 

[Lionfish]

I never did tell her
Nor will I

 

[Red_Pyro]

Funny story about Honey Beeez .

My wife and I have a modest honey farm up here in Alberta.
She is the expert and I am the and I’m the trusty assistant/grunt , and yes that’s printed on my bee suit .

Well last summer I was flying my own drone , a Parrot Anafi (big mistake ) , so I thought I’ll go take some video and pictures of some of our hives as the boss lady does bee presentations to library’s and schools etc .

Well I was about 200 m from the hives lining up my aerial views of one group of hives , so that worked out ok .
So then I started to walk up closer to the hives to get some
closer footage and as I got closer I could hear this ticking noise quite fast so I figured it must be my drone ticking for whatever the issue was .
So I brought it down to see what was up and as it lowered to eye height (don’t worry at a safe distance of course ) to figure out the strange noise was , all of a sudden bees by the hundreds or thousands ( bee counting isn’t my strong point ) just came from the hives and started to attack my drone .
So then it dawned on me where the mysterious ticking was coming from .
Not having my bee armour on I beat a hasty retreat , really they weren’t interested in me but they were defending their homes .
I called back The Anafi as I was running away but the bees kept coming so half way home completely exhausted we got back to the launch point and the majority of the bees had returned home or had been liquidized.
My drone landed and the angriest bees disappeared almost as fast as the props stopped .

Of course my Anafi was just thick with miscellaneous bee parts and dripping in bee juice .
I figured the same thing many of you mentioned that it was the noise that affected them and saw it as big as it was to be a very real threat to their livelihood, so they went full out to kill the mechanical beast in great numbers .

Well after quite some effort I scraped and washed of the bee glue on my drone and it lived to.fly an other day ( for a while anyways) .

So the pitch or whine from either the blades or motors must have duplicated a bee eating hornet or similar flying insect .

Oh and I never mentioned it to my Bee boss / wife , so nobody tell her please . I might get demoted , oh I am all ready at the very bottom of the pay grade .

So if you see any bee hives when you’re out flying keep you distance. !!!! You have been warned !!!.

I guess different models of drones may produce different noise patterns , or they could all bee very similar because of the motors and props being similar.
I should do some testing to see what drones affect the bees the most all for the advancement of science of course .
Anybody care to donate to the cause , new models preferred , like a new Mavic air would be an essential test candidate.

Remember don’t fly too high unless over bees and their hives .

Great story ?