Who patented the robot bees?
What would you think if we said that honey bees, which dance under the sun all day, carry pollen from flower to flower, enriching the natural population by pollinating the flowers, are now robots?
“If the honeybees die, humanity dies.” In today's conditions, where this phrase of Einstein's is often mentioned, we focused on honey bees. Yes, thanks to honey bees, plants are pollinated and fertilized, plants can survive and bear fruit. Without honey bees, of course, we could still live, but we might have to give up some fruit and vegetable types.
When the number of honey bees started to decrease due to climate change, Walmart started a study on this subject and produced "robot honey bees" that could pollinate plants like honeybees.
The patent application filed by Walmart in 2017 shows that there is a system that works on the logic of pollinating plants.
Walmart has also filed a patent application for robot bees. In the application; One or more unmanned devices comprising a pollen applicator made for applying pollen collected from the flower of one plant to a second flower are mentioned. There is a sensor system to verify that the pollen taken by the pollen applicator on the robot bees has been successfully applied to another flower. In this way, while the free movement of robot bees between plants is ensured, it is also possible to control whether the desired systematic is achieved.
So, will these robot bees, which are a product of great technology and intelligence, be able to make honey like real honey bees? The answer to this question will be “no” with current technology. Robot bees will lack honey-making and reproductive capabilities compared to real bees, but will provide all the rest for fertilization, pollination, and pollen transport.
Although it is not known for now whether robot bees will visually resemble a bee, it is a fact that they will be with us in the near future.
It is not known when we will encounter a fantastic idea in real life, but it seems that we will be able to consume fruits and vegetables for longer periods of time thanks to robot bees.
While what science will bring to humanity is a matter of debate every century, TV series and movies that introduce us to technological developments before real life shed light on the future. Robot bees, which have been studied in order to adapt them to real life, are not different from the robot bees we encounter in the Black Mirror series.