Honey bees
How many bees could fly 1000 miles if they had 10 gallons of honey?
Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
Problem
Image
One gallon of honey provides fuel for one bee to fly about seven million miles.
Roughly how many bees could fly one thousand miles if they had ten gallons of honey?
If you liked this problem, here is an NRICH task which challenges you to use similar mathematical ideas.
Student Solutions
Ten gallons of honey would provide enough fuel for one bee to fly
$10 \times 7,000,000 = 70,000,000$ miles
So, the number of bees that can fly 1000 miles is
$ \frac{70,000,000}{1000}= 70,000 $ bees