Honeybee
Honeybee
Honeybees are some of the world’s most prolific pollinators [‘Honeybee’ from studio tdes]

Bees and pollen are associated with a variety of irritations, but together they play a key role in crop production and global agriculture. Unfortunately, bee populations have been declining over the past decade. In response to the threat posed to the world’s food supply, scientists from Japan have been working to develop a robotic bee that can pollinate flowers just like a real honeybee. These scientists have recently developed a gel that facilitates pollination when placed on the hairy underbelly of a small, bee-masquerading drone.

While the concept is off to a great start, several important challenges still need to be addressed.  Remote controls can be used to pilot individual drones, but “swarms” of autonomous robot bees are difficult to coordinate.  Researchers are currently studying insect behavior to improve the drones ability to find pollen sites, pollinate individual flowers, and avoid flying into one another.

Another set of issues emerge when robot bees are released into the wild. For example, a drone bee’s power source must be small enough to avoid impeding maneuverability, yet large enough to allow the drone to fly for a reasonable amount of time. Researchers must also study and mitigate any potentially disruptive effects the drones may have on the behavior of natural pollinators.

Modern robotics is poised to tackle any remaining scientific hurdles to producing pollinating drones. We may be limited to honeybees and bumblebees for now, but it is only a short while before “robobees” will become a reality.

Acknowledgments: Many thanks to Julia Ebert, a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at Harvard University, for providing her expertise and commentary on the topic.

Managing Correspondent: Christopher Gerry

Original Research: Materially Engineered Artificial Pollinators – Chem

Media Coverage: As bee populations dwindle, robot bees may pick up some of their pollination slack – Los Angeles Times

3 thoughts on “Better Bees: Progress Towards Robotic Pollinators

  1. I agree with Angela. We are in the era that Einstein predicted, the technology has overpass the human and we are in the era of idiots. It is ridiculous to bring our hoping that a robot is going to solve the pollination problem. Bees are on hearth 30 millions years ago and have evolved with plants and microbes. This solution is accepting that our food system production is going to continue killing animals including ourselves. Solution is changing the way how we produce our food. This are scary news.

  2. This is extremely scary to me that all of this money and time is being spent creating a artificial means of pollinating when we have the perfect pollinating creatures out there already.
    Why not spend the money on saving what Mother Nature created?
    This is a step in the wrong direction. If robobees do a good job at pollinating then our food crops can be sprayed with even more chemicals thus killing more of the natural pollinators.
    These creatures pollinate EVERYTHING! Not just food crops. What about plants and trees that aren’t food?

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