Mavic pro attacked by bees

[Cerberus]

I still think its the sonar that attracts ( or offend ) nature...

 

[Reigate]

During the latter part of a Hanger360 shoot, I noticed a swarm of bees around the Mavic as it descended. As it was too late to intervene, I quickly distanced myself from the landing area for obvious reasons. The bees continued to swarm around the quad so I had no choice but to takeoff and quickly move it to another landing site. Unfortunately, they did follow so I was more aggressive this time and picked a site even further away. When eventually recovered, there were signs of carnage all over the props and body but thankfully, the cooling vents were clear. Although they could be attracted to the sonar as someone suggested in a previous post, I wonder if it is from the sound of the propellers as to me when operating, the Mavic sounds like a swarm of bees?

 

[Craig540]

Can you out fly Bees ? Shouldn't he have treated them like birds and go full throttle up to get away from them faster, which would result in less to clean up.

 

[Reigate]

Can you out fly Bees ? Shouldn't he have treated them like birds and go full throttle up to get away from them faster, which would result in less to clean up.

Thanks; will try that next time.

 

[geigy]

The drones thought your drone was a queen. They hang out at just under 30 meters altitude, and listen for the queen's wing beat frequency, which is close to the PWM frequencyof the motor controller.

Here's a video of one of my earlier drones with the same thing happening. They would abandon the drone at lower altitudes.

 

[Cerberus]

I can confirm vps (with sonar) attracts bees and makes birds aggressive towards the mavic.

Near my home in previous flights, there were one bird strike and multiple incidents where birds stalk my magic all the way till landing

Had one incident where I noted a few bees buzzing around during landing and found two gooey bee parts on my mavic.

So now I only enable vps during take off and landing and disabled it during flight. No bird or bee incidences since

 

[geigy]

Very interesting. I may stop by the park where the bees were last time and give this a shot.

 

[allufewi]

Can you out fly Bees ? Shouldn't he have treated them like birds and go full throttle up to get away from them faster, which would result in less to clean up.

Topspeeds of insects is actually poorly researched it turns out. A honeybees average speed when laden is said to be around 8-10mph. When not carrying pollen and in attack-mode they sure can be a bit faster.

Generally it seems like you can outpace nearly every insect in sports mode. Only some kinds of dragonflies and horseflies can nearly keep up with the mavic in sport at ~36mph max, but probably for short periods of time only.

You can even go faster than most smaller species of birds such as sparrows that also max out at about 36mph. Thats impossible with angry birds of prey sadly. No way to run away from those horizontaly.

 

[Cerberus]

Topspeeds of insects is actually poorly researched it turns out. A honeybees average speed when laden is said to be around 8-10mph. When not carrying pollen and in attack-mode they sure can be a bit faster.

Generally it seems like you can outpace nearly every insect in sports mode. Only some kinds of dragonflies and horseflies can nearly keep up with the mavic in sport at ~36mph max, but probably for short periods of time only.

You can even go faster than most smaller species of birds such as sparrows that also max out at about 36mph. Thats impossible with angry birds of prey sadly. No way to run away from those horizontaly.

sadly, you can't get good nice video shots at Sports mode...

hence the attack of the Bees (or birds)
hhaha

 

[aringhof]

Can you out fly Bees ? Shouldn't he have treated them like birds and go full throttle up to get away from them faster, which would result in less to clean up.

Or switch it to sport mode and haul a$$ out of there

 

[Vadar007]

Topspeeds of insects is actually poorly researched it turns out. A honeybees average speed when laden is said to be around 8-10mph. When not carrying pollen and in attack-mode they sure can be a bit faster.

Generally it seems like you can outpace nearly every insect in sports mode. Only some kinds of dragonflies and horseflies can nearly keep up with the mavic in sport at ~36mph max, but probably for short periods of time only.

You can even go faster than most smaller species of birds such as sparrows that also max out at about 36mph. Thats impossible with angry birds of prey sadly. No way to run away from those horizontaly.

African or European swallow?

 

[allufewi]

African or European swallow?

European! Thanks to Monthy Python and the internet it is not too hard to find out the average airspeed velocity of such an unladen swallow: roughly 24mph average with a maximum of 35 mph.

So quite similar to the sparrow.

 

[Nightowl702]

I have also noticed flying insects of some kind being very attracted to my Mavic. I also noticed that hummingbirds seem to have an attraction to it as well.

 

[bucefalo]

I had the same experience twice.. The second time there was like a "storm" of bees around it.. Indeed when I took it back home I had to land it few Mt away from me, just to be safe, and once I turned off motors they left.. In the meanwhile It killed 10 or more..

 

[PF2]

Same issue for a week. Mom suggested a few drops of peppermint oil on the props. Works like a charm!

 

[pierakim]

It happened to me today in Brisbane, Australia. Big swarm of bees appears arount 30m high. They were like crazy. Kind of a big bees party where DJ Mavic is playing the right sound.
I started to go down, they were following the drone until it landed. The drone had some turbulences playing Fruit Ninja with bees. It was shacking sometimes.
Piece of bees everywhere and a fried honey Mavic bird to clean.

Maybe it's all about the season and some territorial things, I have no idea.
A macpie gang was happy to clean the murder place. I owe them one.

 

[Divine_Madcat]

I feel this is appropriate:

 

[Nickvr628]

That is unbeelievable! I think the mavic manual says something about attracting bees, does it not?

 

[locoman]

It does have a bee mating call sound.

 

[Mossiback]

.. it is dangerous for the aircraft?

I would look closely at the motors. I am guessing that bee parts in there can cause resistance and corrosion.