Using high speed digital photography and a robotic wing scientists have been able to explain how bees fly, slapping down another of the shoddy arguments used by the Intelligent Design brigade.

Turns out bee flight mechanisms are more exotic than thought.

“The honeybees have a rapid wing beat,” Altshuler told LiveScience. “In contrast to the fruit fly that has one eightieth the body size and flaps its wings 200 times each second, the much larger honeybee flaps its wings 230 times every second.”

This was a surprise because as insects get smaller, their aerodynamic performance decreases and to compensate, they tend to flap their wings faster.

Technorati tag: Bee, Flight, Intelligent Design