Can We Pollinate Flowers With Tiny Flying Drones? (economist.com)

An anonymous reader writes: An engineer in Japan has built a 1.6-inch "pollinator-bot" and successfully tested it in his lab. The drone's creator "has armed it with paintbrush hairs that are covered in a special gel sticky enough to pick pollen up, but not so sticky that it holds on to that pollen when it brushes up against something else," reports The Economist. They write that his experiments with the tiny drone "show that the drone can indeed carry pollen from flower to flower in the way an insect would -- though he has yet to confirm that seeds result from this pollination." While flown by a human pilot, next he hopes to equip the drones with their own flower-recognizing technology.

The Christian Science Monitor followed up with four experts, asking "Could a fleet of robo-pollinators replace, or at least supplement, the bees?" One said "There is no substitute for bees." Another pointed out that even if robo-bees are developed, some flowers will prove harder to pollinate than others. A third expert thought the technology could scale, though it would need to be mass-produced, and the engineers would need to develop a reusable pollen-collecting gel. But a fourth expert remained worried that it just couldn't scale without becoming too expensive. "I'm not sure that's going to be cheap enough to not make blueberries hundreds of dollars a pint."
Three of those experts also agreed that the best solution is just wild bees, because domesticated or not, "All they have to do is make sure to set aside enough land conducive to the bees' habitat."

Comments

Might be easier to fix bees

[ShooterNeo]

Sure would take a lot of drones. It might be easier to genetically engineer the bees to have genes to resist whatever is killing them - insecticide or parasites - by splicing in genes from bee species that are resistant but suboptimal for pollination. Bees are basically self replicating drones that can refuel and rebuild themselves from products supplied by the very flowers they are pollinating.

But worst case scenario - if the bees all become extinct - we could use drones instead.

Re:Might be easier to fix bees

[Rick Schumann]

It might be easier to stop using the chemicals that are killing the bees before we wreck the ecosystem to the point where we can't grow anything anymore!

Re:Might be easier to fix bees

[ShanghaiBill]

If we can even figure out what they are

We know what they are: Neoniotinoids.

and if there are replacements

There are plenty of good replacements.

and if chemicals still in the environment

Neonicotinoids are not particularly persistent. They are already banned in much of Europe. The are not banned in America mainly because of bureaucratic inertia. They don't need to be banned for all crops. For instance, it should be okay to use them on crops that don't attract bees, like corn. But for crops like alfalfa, they should not be used, and there should be penalties for misapplication.

The ultimate pollinator robot

[Atmchicago]

Let's come up with the ultimate pollinator robot:

1. It can pollinate flowers
2. It is automated
3. It sources its own power
4. It can reproduce, but without disturbing the environment
5. It won't be owned by a corporation who uses them to exploit society

Wait -- that sounds exactly like bees. How about we promote the bees, rather than replace them with robots?

Is this the new definition of insanity?

[Archtech]

“Every year, in late winter or early spring, some 3,000 trucks drive across the United States carrying around 40 billion bees to California’s Central Valley, which houses more than 60 million almond trees... Californian growers now spend $250 million a year on bees”.

"Farmageddon", Philip Lymbery with Isabel Oakeshott, p 63.

Californian growers do not spend that money for fun. They do it because otherwise they will have no crop. Good luck producing 40 billion tiny artificial bees. (Although if the idea goes forward I would buy shares in the manufacturer - just as you will notice that there has never been a massive government IT project that Oracle didn't love).

A simpler and more practical idea would be to stop killing off the bees, which do a great job entirely free of charge.