Jim Stovall of University of Tennessee/TNJN.com linked this on December 23, 2009 at 8:15PM EST
Jim said: New research shows how bees finish their flight, never crash. Quote:
If their landing surface was flat, the researchers report today in the Journal of Experimental Biology that bees simply touched down back legs first. If the platform was anywhere between vertical and upside-down, on the other hand, the insects made contact with their antennae first, by pointing them almost perpendicular to the platform. Then, the bees hauled their front legs up and finished with a flip-like maneuver to get their mid-legs and rear legs onto the surface.