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philipy philipy
 
M$2.05 October 16, 2009 06:00 PM

What is the energy consumption of a small insect in flight?

Any insect you can find good data for will do.

If you can find data for a range of insects, and explain why it is what it is, all the better!
Interesting Question?  Yes (1)   No (0)   

Interesting: duenhsiyen M$0.05

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duenhsiyen duenhsiyen
 
 October 18, 2009 08:22 AM
"Estimates of energy consumption indicate that foraging bees get about 11,265,100 km (7 million flight miles) to 3.8 L (1 gal) honey. Normally bees forage no more than a 3.2- to 4.0-km (2- to 2.5-mi) radius from the hive, covering 324 to 5062 ha (8,000 to 12,500 a) but may on occasion fly up to 16.1 km (10 mi) at a speed of 19.3 to 24 km (12 to 15 mi) per hour."
http://gears.tucson.ars.ag.gov/beebook/sec1/sec1.html
Since 1 gallon = 128 ounces: 7,000,000/128 = 55,000 miles/ounce

"It would take approximately 1 ounce of honey to fuel a bee's flight around the world.
http://worldupdates.tripod.com/newupdates10/id130.htm
This agrees to within a factor of two with the first statement, so this checks out.

Oxygen consumption of a flying bee 10 to 50 ml O2/hr depending on species weight; See Fig 9.37

Rule of thumb: It takes 1 liter of oxygen to burn approximately 5 calories of food (depends on whether it is carbohydrate/fat/protein)

1 ounce of honey contains 86 calories

It takes 86/5=17.2 liters of Oxygen to burn 1 oz of honey.

A bee flying around the world at 15 mph will take 24,000miles/15 = 1600 hours
1600hr x 10ml O2/hr = 16000ml or 16 liters of Oxygen

So, this also checks out with previous calculations.

Photos: Tethered fly for measuring oxygen consumption (and hence energy consumption) during flight;
Robotic insect being designed by military for spying.

duenhsiyen

Source(s):
http://gears.tucson.ars.ag.gov/beebook/sec1/sec1.html
http://worldupdates.tripod.com/newupdates10/id130.htm
http://books.google.com/books?id=ukiUGoCUsCYC&pg=PA218&dq=insect+fl...
http://books.google.com/books?id=a1RchCrwKWsC&pg=PA306&lpg=PA306&am...
http://www.thecaloriecounter.com/Foods/1900/19296/Food.aspx
http://www.springerlink.com/content/um61806j555314n2/ Insect Flight Calorimetry

http://fdocc.blogspot.com/2006/01/intelligent-design-discovered-in-flies.ht...
http://www.therawfeed.com/2007/10/are-insect-robots-spying-on-protesters.ht...
http://www.cbid.gatech.edu/ Center for Biologically Inspired Design

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Tags: honey, energy, flying, consumption, bee

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Helpful: philipy

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philipy philipy
 
October 18, 2009 03:57 PM
A fine answer.

Can you translate the answer into watts? That would be an interesting comparison.

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duenhsiyen duenhsiyen
 
October 18, 2009 06:06 PM
Energy and power are terms often confused by the general public. Power is the rate at which energy is being consumed per unit time. A calorie is a unit of energy while a watt is a unit of power. When being charged for electricity, you are being charged for the amount of energy you used, usually in kilowatt-hours. A calorie can be converted to watt-hours of energy using any of the online conversion calculators. Even more confusing is that a food calorie is 1000 times the value of a calorie as defined in physics.(one food calorie = one kilocalorie in physics)

86 calories/1600 hours = .05375 calories/hr = honey bee expenditure of energy per unit time = .0625 Watts

In other words, a flying honey bee is like a .0625 watt light bulb.

Wouldn't it be amazing if we could fly around the world on a half ounce of honey!

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilowatt_hour
http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/cost.html
http://www.unitconversion.org/energy/calories-nutritional-to-watt-hours-conversion.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_energy

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lesliec lesliec
 
October 19, 2009 04:24 PM
Congratulations! Your answer won third place in our Answer of the Day contest! You win $2.00 and are now the proud owner of the Mahalo Tiki Torch!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33749589@N07/3916896063/

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