Q 01/05

According to a famous 20th-century myth, the laws of aerodynamics prove that a bumblebee should be unable to do what?

A) Hover in place

B) Fly at all

C) Fly in the rain

D) Fly backwards

Answer · why

B) Fly at all

Fly at all, says the myth, which grew from rough sums that left out how air swirls over a beating wing. Real bumblebee wings stir up a vortex on every...

Q 02/05

Which wizard created by J. K. Rowling, imagined as always humming, has a surname that is an old word for bumblebee?

A) Rubeus Hagrid

B) Remus Lupin

C) Albus Dumbledore

D) Severus Snape

Answer · why

C) Albus Dumbledore

Albus Dumbledore carries a dialect name for the bumblebee, chosen because the headmaster loves music. J. R. R. Tolkien used the same old word for the ...

Q 03/05

Why can a female bumblebee sting again and again, when a honeybee worker usually dies after stinging a person?

A) It regrows a lost stinger

B) Its stinger lacks barbs

C) It has two stingers

D) Its venom refills fast

Answer · why

B) Its stinger lacks barbs

Its stinger lacks barbs, so it slides out cleanly instead of tearing free like a honeybee's. Bumblebees are rarely aggressive and mostly sting only to...

Q 04/05

Which Russian composer wrote the frantic orchestral interlude Flight of the Bumblebee for his opera about Tsar Saltan?

A) Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

B) Modest Mussorgsky

C) Sergei Rachmaninoff

D) Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Answer · why

D) Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov wrote it for a scene in which a magic swan turns a prince into an insect so he can fly to his father. Its nearly unbroken runs...

Q 05/05

Cuckoo bumblebees are named for which habit that they share with the bird?

A) Laying eggs in others' nests

B) Calling loudly in spring

C) Migrating to Africa each winter

D) Eating hairy caterpillars

Answer · why

A) Laying eggs in others' nests

Laying eggs in others' nests is the whole strategy: the female invades a colony, kills or subdues its queen and has the workers raise her young. Cucko...