So, I'm flying the drone around, when something flits past the camera view.
Something small and black. A mini UFO.
"Huh?"
Then another and another. Too many for it to be a coincidence, a chance mid-air meeting. And now that I've had a clearer view of their stripes and their little wings, it dawns on me that birds aren't the only thing up there that attacks drones -- bees aren't partial to them either.
I can't bring it down straight away because I couldn't collect it if it's still being swarmed. So, I fly up -- far up -- around 100m up -- but they're still persistent, even at that height. I have to go a few hundred metres out before I lose them and can cautiously return home.
Luckily, they don't re-engage -- I can land safely; and when I go to pick the drone up I discover that its top surface is covered in a sticky brown goo.
"What the hell is this?"
The two options that come to mind are: (a) honey or wax (which makes zero sense); and (b) some sort of bee venom (which also makes zero sense -- the quantity was too large).
It was only when I saw the little wings embedded in the gunk that I realised the truth: the brown sludge was dead bees. They'd been chewed up in the propellers, and the more that died, the angrier the remaining bees became, and that was why they were so persistent.
