James Marshall’s “Borrowing bee brains” article caused a real buzz 20 February, p 23. It was fascinating to read that, having reverse-engineered part of the visual system and navigation and memory sensors of bees, he and his team created autonomous drones. Should sufficient numbers of these be flown together to create a viable “swarm”, the sight would doubtless be impressive.
Might we assume that the next steps will result in the creation of workers and queens? If a swarm of workers encounters a lone queen, might we then see the conditions being set for the beginnings of robotic replication?
