Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Footkerchief]

Buzzing does not come from an insect's wings.  Most insect wings are very quiet when they flap.  They're too small to make any significant buzzing noise - otherwise hummingbirds would buzz too, louder, and they only make a very soft thrumming sound.  The noises are instead usually made by the insect's spiracles (breathing holes), in the case of bees and wasps, or sometimes by small hairs rubbing together as the wings move (I believe this may be the case for locusts and grasshoppers, but I am not sure so it could be wrong.) 

Source?

[Neonivek]

I believe in a Humming bird's case the hum is supposed to be its heart beat or something.

[Wirevix]

My initial source was QI, since the entire point of that show is to talk about things that are commonly believed but not so commonly true.  (Transcript of the episode is http://sites.google.com/site/qitranscripts//transcripts/2x08 )

Other sources can be http://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/agnic/bee/faq.asp?qid=16 and http://www.physorg.com/news92397117.html

So while the wings are part of it, the buzz of a bee is not wholly attributable to their wings; if it were it would not sound nearly so recognizable, and would rather be a rather soft sound like a fly, only audible when the creature is particularly close by (although if one chooses to believe the initial source, even a louder fly like a bluebottle also relies on spiracles to buzz, so perhaps a mosquito is a more accurate comparison).

For the grasshoppers and locusts I can't find any source, which is why I suspect there is a good chance I'm wrong on those ones. 

[Topace3k]

I believe in a Humming bird's case the hum is supposed to be its heart beat or something.

No.

[Neonivek]

I believe in a Humming bird's case the hum is supposed to be its heart beat or something.

No.

That is impossible

[lordcooper]

I believe in a Humming bird's case the hum is supposed to be its heart beat or something.

No.

That is impossible

You can hear a mouses heart hum sometimes.

Source:  Ihave a pet mouse.

[Neonivek]

Well also impossible in the sense that I said "Or something"

Though I guess it would be different if it was "And"

No wait, the possibility of "And" is existant in "Or Something"

[Footkerchief]

Other sources can be http://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/agnic/bee/faq.asp?qid=16 and http://www.physorg.com/news92397117.html

I tried tracking down real sources for those claims, and the topic doesn't appear to have been actively researched since the 60s, at which point it was still a matter of contention:

The most interesting suggestion is that the bee makes its sounds by ejecting air through its spiracles: the breathing openings in the side of its body. On purely theoretical grounds it is quite plausible that the insect could produce the observed sounds by a whistling or a bagpipe effect. But recent experiments in our laboratory and also by other investigators generally negate this theory. For one thing, if helium is substituted for nitrogen in the air in which the bee produces its sounds, this does not change the frequency of the sound; if the spiracle theory is correct, it should, because the density of a gas affects the frequency of the sound produced by vibrating a column of the gas. For another thing, it has been found that the sounds of a piping queen do not always coincide with accordion-like movements of its abdomen, so that its abdominal spiracles cannot be producing the sound. Finally, James Simpson of the Rothamsted Experimental Station in England has shown by delicate spiracle-blocking experiments that the bee’s thoracic spiracles play no part in sound production.

The other possibilities are that the bee produces sound by vibrating its wings or the sclerites (hard plates) at the base of its wings or the entire surface of the upper part of its body. Simpson and I and others have been investigating these possibilities. At the moment the wing-vibration theory seems to be the most promising.

Until recently this idea was rejected on two grounds: that a bee’s wings are too small to produce sounds of the frequencies and intensities heard, and that experimenters who have clipped the wings have not found that this changed the intensity of the bee’s piping. The second idea is simply wrong; careful experiments show that clipping the wings does affect the bee’s sound-making. It raises the frequency and reduces the intensity of the sound, and the change is proportional to the amount of wing removed [11. see illustration]. It appears, therefore, that wing vibration is responsible at least for amplification, and probably for production, of the bee’s sounds. It is hoped that experiments now under way will answer the question more definitely.

It sounds like it's an unproven hypothesis that made its way into pop science.  I don't have JSTOR access anymore, though, so if anyone can find something more recent, I'd love to read it.

No.

That is impossible

Keep it productive, y'all.

[Neonivek]

Well Insects have always been an interesting field of study with all those crazy people around.

[Sean Mirrsen]

One of the older theories I heard about buzzing, is that it's not the main wings that make the sound, but smaller "subwings" that the insect uses for manuevering. Mind you, I heard that about 10 years ago, and in regards to the buzzing of a fly, not a bee. The bees... maybe bees are just making the noise themselves? Like, you know, for sonar navigation/IFF stand-in?

[Lancensis]

The bees... maybe bees are just making the noise themselves? Like, you know, for sonar navigation/IFF stand-in?

It seems plausible that they would deliberately make the noise to ward off predators in the same way as their colouration. I believe they mostly use the sun, and possibly pheromones to navigate, though.

[Sysice]

And Dwarf Fortress is Dwarf Fortress.  It's magic, aye, but what sorta magic?  If you're gonna have a world which can be interacted with on the scale of Dwarf Fortress, the program will need more info than "it's magic."  If you grind the horn up, does it still neutralize poison?  If so, how much ground unicorn horn is needed for the process to operate?  What counts as poison, anyhow?  Is alcohol on that list?  Do other parts of the unicorn's body (like meat, bones...) have similar purifying properties?  If you make a scalpel from unicorn horn, have you just invented a self-sterilizing scalpel? Can Dwarvern Science make use of industrial-sized herds of unicorns, farmed like we farm cows, or do the unicorns have to be roaming free within the sacred forests in order for them to do their magic?  Can unicorns even breed in captivity, or will chained unicorns wither away and die in sadness unless given the love and respect they feel they deserve?  Is it worth playing the part of a peace-loving hippie to start a unicorn breeding program, and simply make sure none of them realize what happens to their brethren taken into the mountain?

Dwarvern Science is not satisfied until it has the answers to every possible scenario, preferably obtained in the most amoral and appalling manner possible.  With magma, ideally.

This is why I love Dwarf Fortress. I'm sorely tempted to make it my background.

So... If they can be amazed that much by magic poo, it would be awesome to make them poop it out, so they would play with admire their own poo. I will now go use brain bleach.

[NewoTigra]

The bees... maybe bees are just making the noise themselves? Like, you know, for sonar navigation/IFF stand-in?

It seems plausible that they would deliberately make the noise to ward off predators in the same way as their colouration. I believe they mostly use the sun, and possibly pheromones to navigate, though.

To ward off predators? Whenever I hear a bluebottle buzzing around near me my initial reaction is invariably "kill it with fire" just to get rid of the annoying noise. Although I have a low sound-tolerance so that might just be a personal thing.

According to latest research, they apparently use mostly pheromones and suchlike. Bee's, when abducted and taken several miles away from their hives, can find  their way back amazingly well. One was reported to even take a train as a short cut, but that might have just been an accident coming from curiosity. Hehe, kind of like curiosity killed the cat. Would make for an odd saying at the least.
In relation to pheromones, don't keep dead bees in your house. When they die they tend to send out one of two pheromones, either one which says "dangerous here, avoid" or "rivals here, AVENGE ME!". The second one gets really annoying whenever you find a week old bee carcass on a windowsill behind the plant pot, then open the window to find a swarm of angry bees assuming that your house is a rival hive.

On the subject of insects and their aggravating buzzing;
Regarding dwarves' current dislike of certain vermin, will they eventually take measures to get rid of any vermin they see? If so, will this also have correlations with thoughts:
i.e. 'Urist McEukaryota was disgusted by a horrid creature lately', but 'Urist McEukaryota is happy to have squished said disgusting vermin recently'.
I, for one, would love to see some sort of dwarven Pest Control officer. Maybe just a dwarf to take over the role of cats somehow. Would be rather nasty is he also ate the vermin but...meh, stuff happens.

[dragnar]

My reaction to bees is usually "AGH! Run away from the stingers!" But that's mainly because I never notice them until they're buzzing around my face...

[AbacusWizard]

I, for one, would love to see some sort of dwarven Pest Control officer. Maybe just a dwarf to take over the role of cats somehow.

Doesn't the "Trapper" job already cover that?