Question

A honey bee of mass 135 mg has accumulated a static charge of +1.6 pC. The bee is returning to her hive by following the path shown in the figure. Because Earth has a naturally occurring electric field near ground level of around 100 V/m

pointing vertically downward, the bee experiences an electric force as she flies.

What is the change in the bee’s electric potential energy, Δ?electric,

as she flies from point A (0 m,0.3 m) to point B (5.5 m,4.0 m)?

Δ?electric=

Compute the ratio of the bee’s change in electric potential energy to her change in gravitational potential energy, Δ?electric/Δ?grav.

Δ?electric/Δ?grav=

Answer 1

Given :

mass of Honey Bee ,

Charge on Honey Bee ,

Electric Field of earth Vertically Downward ,

Point A (0,0.3) and point B (5.5, 4.0)

As the Honey bee is flying from A (0,0.3) to B (5.5, 4.0) it has to do work aganist downward electric field of earth.Here Work i s done along horizontal axis (X- axis) is zero, as the field is vertically downwards

  

Substituting values in eqn 1

.....................................................................................

Now the work done aganist gravitational pull when honey bee is flying from A to B is equal to change in gravitational potential energy

Now