What is the noise that bees make?

Whoop whoop! A vibrational pulse produced by honeybees, long thought to be a signal to other bees to stop what they are doing, might actually be an expression of surprise. Bees produce vibrations with their wing muscles that are inaudible to humans but can be detected by accelerometers embedded in the honeycomb.

The sound of bees buzzing is caused by the rapid movement of their wings. The rapid contraction of their wing flight muscles is what causes the high pitched whining (buzzing) sound .

Honeybees have long been known to communicate using a “whooping” noise that’s inaudible to human ears.

A queenless hive will typically cause the drone and worker bees inside to become nervous, anxious, and irritable. A sound that is akin to a high-pitched whine that is mixed with a low sounding roar can sometimes be heard.

The often-quoted rate of honey bee wing beats is 11,400 times per minute, but beekeepers know very well that the sound varies with circumstance, individual colony and even subspecies; reports range from 190 Hz to 250 Hz .