Scientists are building pollinator drones as aids to the diminishing number of bees recently. As they are alarmed by this an idea of inventing something to help the pollinating works came to reality.
The dystopian show Black Mirror did not motivate Eijiro Miyako, a chemist from National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology for discovering the idea of building pollinator drones but the number of bees that is declining. Bees which are very important in pollinating plants are reported to be declining at an alarming rate as reported by Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
According to Gizmodo, Miyako and his team of scientists in Japan have engineered drones featuring a specially-engineered adhesive that can pick up and deposit pollen. The building of pollinator drones is not meant to replace the natural pollinators but to help them in their work. This is in preparation for the future when bees are fewer in number.
Miyako's idea started when he found an old bottle of sticky gel in the lab used in the past experiment. That gel is composed of a collection of complex molecules joined together in long chains. It has an optimal stickiness that can pick up pollen grains. Together with his companion, Miyako tested repeatedly by rubbing it on ants and flies and having the bugs hang out around flowers and bingo! Each bug was covered with pollen grains. These scientists now came with the idea of building pollinator drones.
Next thing they prepare is a 2-inch G-Force PXY CAM remote-controlled drone and they glued animal hair in the bottom covered with goo. The result was positive, the drones could pick up and deposit pollen grains effectively by knocking into the flowers. They immediately published their discovery in the journal Chem. Building pollinator drones can be a good alternative for some natural pollination.
But the idea of building pollinator drones did not convince others as reported by Popular Science. Biologist David Goulson from the University of Sussex in the UK said that it is exceedingly unlikely that we could ever produce something as cheap and as effective as bees themselves. Not to mention the fact that it cost very expensive, compared to natural bees which are computed by Goulson would reach to 3.2 trillion bees. He said these bees feed themselves, breed for free and give us honey.
Each pollinator drone would cost up to $100 dollar multiply by 3.2 trillion bees, would mean a whole lot of money to replace a single hive. He said the best thing to do is to look after bees not plan for their demise. For Goulson building pollinator drones is simply not an answer for the declining number of the bees and the pollination works in the future.
