"Flight of the Bumblebee" is an orchestral interlude written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov for his opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan, composed in 1899-1900. The piece closes Act III, Tableau 1, during which the magic Swan-Bird changes Prince Gvidon Saltanovich (the Tsar's son) into an insect so that he can fly away to visit his father (who does not know that he is alive). "Flight of the Bumblebee" is recognizable for its frantic pace when played up to tempo, with nearly uninterrupted runs of chromatic sixteenth notes. It is not so much the pitch or range of the notes that are played that challenges the musician, but simply the musician's ability to move to them quickly enough. Because of this and its complexity, it requires a great deal of skill to perform.

Bumblebee is the name of several fictional characters from the Transformers series. In most incarnations, Bumblebee is a small, yellow Autobot with the altmode of a compact car. Bumblebee holds the distinction of being the second character to appear on-screen in the original Transformers animated series, while on a mission to recover a small clutch of energy conductors with Wheeljack, illustrating the energy crisis holding sway over their home planet of Cybertron. Bumblebee is subsequently among the Transformers aboard the Ark as it set off searching for new worlds and new energy sources, which crashed on Earth, causing the Transformers within to be trapped in stasis for four million years. Awakening in 1984, Bumblebee helps Ironhide quell a raging river and uses his small size to help Sparkplug Witwicky plant explosives in the midst of a Decepticon mining operation.