To Bee Or Not to Bee...

By Ava Foulk '23

You hear a buzzing sound and look around to find its source, but instead of seeing a familiar black and yellow creature, you see a strange, small metal contraption. What is this bizarre gadget that is functioning exactly like the bee you are used to seeing?

Robotic bees are minuscule drones that are designed to perform the essential tasks of a bee. If a solution is not found and applied to save the real bees, seeing metal bees perform the job of pollination could become a common occurrence. RoboBees are about half the size of a paperclip and weigh under one-tenth of a gram. Members of the Wyss Institute at Harvard University have discovered an effective way to manufacture the needed materials in order to create a robotic bee prototype. RoboBees are manufactured using microelectromechanical or MEM technologies which layer thin sheets of the required material into a foldable version of the final product. The main body frame of these drones are made of carbon fiber, and the wings are created using piezoelectric ceramic that contracts like a muscle when an electric current is applied. The wings flap 120 times per second enabling the bee to hover above the ground. Moreover, the brain includes sensors so that the drone can identify and respond to its surroundings. Finally, the individual bees are coded to act as a collective member of a colony. The advancements in technology that made this type of manufacturing possible is astounding and has already proved to be advantageous in robotic engineering. Complications such as a sustainable and feasible power source still need to be addressed; additionally, what happens when a RoboBee is defunct and its systems fail? If a RobeBee experiences a technical problem, they will drop to the ground and become another piece of trash that ends up in the environment. Furthermore, their material is non biodegradable and could potentially contaminate the surrounding ecosystem wherever they fall. RoboBees could prove to be helpful tools in search and rescue missions, crop pollination, pesticide application, and atmospheric monitoring, but it is unlikely that they have the ability to take over the demands of the widespread pollination that the real bees accomplish.

The United States alone lost 44% of honeybee colonies in 2016 due to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). CCD is the frightening decrease in bee colonies because of harmful pesticides and disease. Bees do not just make honey, they pollinate approximately a third of the food we eat. Therefore, the world would experience staggering consequences agriculturally as well as environmentally if the bees became extinct. Crops would die, farms would go out of business, and agricultural production would drastically decrease. The economy and the ecosystem would be forced to confront the reverberating effects. While robobees are a viable option to aid pollination, it will be many years before they can perform widespread pollination demands. Bees are facing an alarming future, and it is partly because of our environmentally careless actions. You can raise awareness and demand a response to CCD in order to help save the bees. We need to focus on saving the bees still alive before we are forced to use robotic bees in the future.

Albright, Mary Beth. “Could Robot Bees Help Save Our Crops?” National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/food/the-plate/2014/08/21/could-robot-bees-help-save-crops/.

Macholz, Kaitlin. “Flight of the RoboBee.” Cooper Hewitt. https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2016/08/17/flight-of-the-robobee/.

Ponti, Crystal. “Rise of the Robot Bees: Tiny Drones Turned Into Artificial Pollinators.” NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/03/03/517785082/rise-of-the-robot-bees-tiny-drones-turned-into-artificial-pollinators.

“RoboBees: Autonomous Flying Microbots.” Wyss Institute. https://wyss.harvard.edu/technology/robobees-autonomous-flying-microrobots/.