"Most of the world’s produce which we take for granted are all thanks to insects like bees that help in the pollination of the flowers of plants. In recent years, however, large colonies of bees have been disappearing in what has been called a bee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). According to the US Bee Informed Partnership, the country''s beekeepers lost around a third of their colonies. As both natural population and reared bee colony population decline, the farmers who depend on these bees face issues with their yield. This, in turn, increases food prices."
"Russian scientists at the Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) now offer an alternative: robo-bees. Researchers plan to launch the project in 2019, and the size of the prototypes will be at least seven times bigger than real bees, which means that they’ll be the size of a human palm. According to Alexey Yakovlev, the head of TPU’s School of Engineering, artificial bees will be especially beneficial for strawberry and other plants that grow in greenhouses all year round. "We plan to develop the robo-bees, algorithms and software, as well as optical systems and image recognition methods for accurate positioning,” Yakovlev said. Creating the first batch of 100 flying robots will cost around $1.4 million. "For year-round pollination in large greenhouses farmers use bumblebees,” Yakovlev said “One bumblebee family costs about $500. In winter, they fly in infrared light, which simulates solar heat, but in spring the whole bumblebee family can escape. This, of course, is an economic loss.” The robots, of course, will work non-stop and will never leave. Artificial bees, however, will not solve the problem of the species facing possible extinction, said Yakovlev. “We will use robo-bees only in greenhouses, outside their natural habitat.”" (rbth)
These artificial bees will be most beneficial for strawberries and other plants that grow in greenhouses.