An EU-funded project develops a robotic system to save bees

A new robotic temperature modulation system reveals hitherto unknown collective behaviors of honey bees, opening the door to new possibilities to help them survive in a changing climate. The EU-funded HIVEOPOLIS project team has developed a robotic system capable of interacting with honey bee colonies. Integrated within a typical hive, the discreet system measures and influences bee behavior by adapting the hive's temperature. As described in the journal Science Robotics, the system made up of thermal sensors and actuators provides an opportunity to further investigate the collective behaviors of animals and ways to help honey bees survive the pressures of climate change. As a co-author of the study, doctoral student Rafael Barmak, from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), a partner of the HIVEOPOLIS project, explains in a news item published on the university's website: "Many rules of The society of bees, from collective and individual interactions to ...