Honeybee populations are under increasing pressure, with these important pollinators in decline across the globe. Researchers have come up with a revolutionary, futuristic concept to protect them.
Nearly three-quarters of food crops depend on pollinators to some extent, so ensuring the wellbeing of these insects as they confront pressure from all sides -, climate change, habitat loss, invasive alien species and pesticides - will be central to ensuring, healthy functioning ecosystems and enough food.
Scientists working in Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Latvia and Switzerland collaborated on a series of hives containing digital technologies to help monitor and manage honeybee populations.
The technologies could help support precision agriculture. One innovation is a digital honeybee comb, consisting of many individual robots on the honeycomb, which is itself embedded with a range of sensors. It gathers data on the honeybees and responds with vibration patterns or changes in temperature to control and move the bee colony in specific ways.
Bees use a ‘waggle dance’ to communicate with each other about pollen sources, and researchers created a dancing robot to actively recruit bees to specific locations.
The team developed a series of hives to embed the various technologies inside. One of the hives developed by the team was made by 3D-printing an artificial hollow tree trunk using fungi, a natural material that boosts the environmental benefits of the system.