it's a bird, it's a plane, it's a drone pollinating flowers!

Can the extinction of bees lead to the extinction of Humans? Some scientists believe this could happen. Bees have been declared an endangered and protected species since January 2017, but scientist have predicted that this would be an issue since the early 90s. The main issue that the extinction of bees brings to humanity is that without them, we would lose about 75% of the worlds crops that are pollinated by bees (Wells, 2018). Bees aren’t the only pollinators that are facing extinction, about 40% of pollinating species which includes butterflies are also dealing with the same issue (Prisco, 2017). The main causes for their extinction are: Pesticides, Parasites, and Climate Change.

These are big issues that involves billion-dollar industries to change a lot of habits that they’ve had for decades. Since this involves an immense amount of money for change, experts are looking for ways that plants could survive without pollinators. Recently I ran into a video on twitter, out of all places, that showed a mini drone attempting to pollinate a flower. Is this the future?

A researcher, at Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, named Eijiro Miyako, is currently working on a drone which is coated with a patch of horse hair that will be able to collect and transfer pollen from one plant to another. Although he can transfer the pollen from plant to plant, the drone is a work in progress. There’s still room for improvement because to pollinate a large field you would need the drone to be automated. The drones are currently remotely controlled which takes a long time.

One acre of tree fruit needs about 20,000 bees to provide adequate pollination (Mayer & Burgett, 1993). Does this mean we would need millions of drones to pollinate a state or for the U.S? Also, there are different types of bees that pollinate different types of plants. ” Bumble bees, for example, are far better pollinators for tomatoes, while leaf cutter bees are aces at alfalfa” (Ponti, 2017). This would mean that there would be different sized drones for different plants and regions. It will be interesting to see what will occur to the bees and to humanity.

References

• Mayer, D. F., & Burgett, M. (1993). Honeybee. Retrieved from Washington State University Web Site: http://treefruit.wsu.edu/crop-protection/opm/honeybee/
• Ponti, C. (2017, March 3). Rise Of The Robot Bees: Tiny Drones Turned Into Artificial Pollinators. Retrieved from NPR: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/03/03/517785082/rise-of-the-robot-bees-tiny-drones-turned-into-artificial-pollinators
• Prisco, J. (2017, March 9). Researchers use drone to pollinate a flower. Retrieved from Cnn.com: https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/09/world/artificial-pollinator-japan/index.html
• Wells, A. (2018, May 2). Bee Extinction: A Real Concern for Food Industry's Supply Chain. Retrieved from The Boss Magazine: https://thebossmagazine.com/bee-extinction/