Watch as a swarm of bees are attacking my drone, 40 meters in the air!

My drone (DJI Phantom 4) survived unscathed, except for some blood and guts on the fuselage, battery, and propellers—that were easily wiped clean.

Telemetry...
Altitude: 40 m (131.2 feet)
Horizontal speed: 13 km/h (8.1 mph)

Fairview Park, Costa Mesa, California

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DJI Phantom 4; FW: 01.02.0503; RC GL300C; 64GB Class-10 SDCard; 2 BATT
AMA Member; FAA sUAS Registered
iPad Air 2-128GB; Toshiba Radius P55W-B 16 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD

Wow, amazing. Didn't realize you would get bees so high up.

LOL...maybe it should be "bees attacked by drone!" Great footage.

First time I ever flew my P3 it was attacked by 2 large hornets.

Not for long.

Wow I wonder what would have happened if you just stoped and just hovered?

That's crazy. I flew near the corner of my house, where there is a wasp nest (just waiting for them to freeze before sealing it up).

They are very active but wanted nothing to do with the phantom.

FuZZyPiLOT Posted at 2016-10-10 23:44
Wow, amazing. Didn't realize you would get bees so high up.

I didn't believe it either. I dismissed the guts on the aircraft as being from bees until I saw my downloaded video.

dgriffnz Posted at 2016-10-11 19:48
LOL...maybe it should be "bees attacked by drone!" Great footage.

Ha-ha! Thanks!

hallmark007 Posted at 2016-10-12 08:49
Wow I wonder what would have happened if you just stoped and just hovered?

I would imagine a good bulk of them would have still flown into the props, trying to defend whatever it was that they thought was being preyed on.  

At that altitude, I wonder if you happened upon a swarm with a migrating queen. You obviously were not too near to the hive (unless the hive happens to be floating 40 meters in the air), nor could you have just happened upon a swarm surrounding a necessary resource such as water.

Good thing the bees were 40 meters up, instead of down at ground level with the pedestrians in the video!

Hoomi Posted at 2017-1-4 13:00
At that altitude, I wonder if you happened upon a swarm with a migrating queen. You obviously were not too near to the hive (unless the hive happens to be floating 40 meters in the air), nor could you have just happened upon a swarm surrounding a necessary resource such as water.

Good thing the bees were 40 meters up, instead of down at ground level with the pedestrians in the video!

Yes, it's amazing how oblivious the people walking below are to what is happening above them!

SoCal Dude Posted at 2017-1-4 15:08
Yes, it's amazing how oblivious the people walking below are to what is happening above them!

This just happened to me and wanted to come to the forum to check if it happened to anyone else, they really went after my drone and actually prevented me from getting some shots I needed on a gig. So strange.

Mother Nature at it’s/her finest. ;-)


“Honey”, I’m home!! Hahaha


RedHotPoker

Perfect music for that video, LOL but am shocked they was up that high.