Cultural References
The orchestral interlude "Flight of the Bumblebee" was composed (circa 1900) by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov to represent the turning of Prince Guidon to visit his father, Tsar Saltan, in the opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan, although the music is considered to more accurately reflect the flight of a bluebottle than a bumblebee. The music inspired Walt Disney to feature a bumblebee in his 1940 animated musical Fantasia and have it sound as if it were flying in all parts of the theater. This early attempt at "surround sound" was unsuccessful, and the music was excluded from the film's release.
The archaic English colloquialism dumbledor (also used for cockchafers) is the source of the name Albus Dumbledore, a fictional character from the Harry Potter series (1997-2007). J. K. Rowling said the name "seemed to suit the headmaster, because one of his passions is music and I imagined him walking around humming to himself".
The genus name Bombus, assigned by Pierre André Latreille in 1802, is derived from the Latin word for a buzzing or humming sound.
Read more about this topic: Bumblebee
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—Frank Pittman (20th century)