Do Almond Trees Dream of Electric Bees?

Oil on linen. Private Collection.

Fruit crops like almonds, oranges, apples and pears depend on insect pollination. Pollination of vast tree monocultures is big business and thousands of beehives are moved over long distances to be close to flowering trees. However, this practice is now in crisis following the widespread collapse of bee populations due to pesticide exposure, climate change and other stress factors.  Therefore, in China it is now not uncommon for human workers to hand-pollinate fruit trees.  

Meanwhile, scientists at Delft University of Technology have been working on ‘robotic bees’: bee-like mini-drones that can pollinate plants when the real-life insects have become rare or extinct. When reading about this, I  was reminded of dystopian science fiction. I  was also angry: Why pursue a tech ‘solution’ that requires yet more energy and resources, instead of making farming more sustainable so that pollinating insects can recover? The next step in this dystopian tech-future would be to create human androids that need neither food nor robo-bees. Is this the future we want?