<
https://northeastbylines.co.uk/news/science/faced-with-dwindling-bee-colonies-scientists-are-arming-queens-with-robots-and-smart-hives/>
"Be it the news or the dwindling number of creatures hitting your windscreens,
it will not have evaded you that the insect world’s in bad shape. In the last
three decades, the global biomass of flying insects has shrunk by 75%. Among
the trend’s most notables victims is the world’s most important pollinator, the
honeybee. In the United States, 48% of honeybee colonies died in 2023 alone,
making it the second deadliest year on record. This significant loss is due in
part to colony collapse disorder (CCD), the sudden disappearance of bees. In
contrast, European countries report lower but still worrisome rates of colony
losses, ranging from 6% to 32%.
This decline causes many of our essential food crops to be under-pollinated, a
phenomenon that threatens our society’s food security.
So, what can be done? Given pesticides’ role in the decline of bee colonies,
commonly proposed solutions include a shift away from industrial farming and
toward less pesticide-intensive, more sustainable forms of agriculture.
Others tend to look toward the sci-fi end of things, with some scientists
imagining that we could eventually replace live honeybees with robotic ones.
Such artificial bees could interact with flowers like natural insects,
maintaining pollination levels despite the declining numbers of natural
pollinators. The vision of artificial pollinators contributed to ingenious
designs of insect-sized robots capable of flying.
In reality, such inventions are more effective at educating us over engineers’
fantasies than they are at reviving bee colonies, so slim are their prospects
of materialising. First, these artificial pollinators would have to be equipped
for much more more than just flying. Daily tasks carried out by the common bee
include searching for plants, identifying flowers, unobtrusively interacting
with them, locating energy sources, ducking potential predators, and dealing
with adverse weather conditions. Robots would have to perform all of these in
the wild with a very high degree of reliability since any broken-down or lost
robot can cause damage and spread pollution. Second, it remains to be seen
whether our technological knowledge would be even capable of manufacturing such
inventions. This is without even mentioning the price tag of a swarm of robots
capable of substituting pollination provided by a single honeybee colony."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
