A robotic honeycomb for interaction with a honeybee colony

Abstract: Robotic technologies have shown the capability to interact with living organisms and even to form integrated mixed societies comprised of living and artificial agents. Bio-compatible robots, incorporating sensing and actuation capable of generating and responding to relevant stimuli, can be a tool to study collective behaviors previously unattainable with traditional techniques. To investigate collective behaviors of the western honeybee (Apis mellifera), we designed a robotic system capable of observing and modulating the bee cluster using an array of thermal sensors and actuators. We initially integrated the system into a beehive populated with approximately 4,000 bees for several months. The robotic system was able to observe the colony by continuously collecting spatio- temporal thermal profiles of the winter cluster. Furthermore, we found that our robotic device reliably modulated the superorganism’s response to dynamic thermal stimulation, influencing its spatiotemporal re-organization. In addition, after identifying the thermal collapse of a colony, we used the robotic system in a “life-support” mode via its thermal actuators. Ultimately, we demonstrated a robotic device capable of autonomous closed-loop interaction with a cluster comprising thousands of individual bees. Such biohybrid societies open the door to investigation of collective behaviors that necessitate observing and interacting with the animals within a complete social context, as well as for potential applications in augmenting the survivability of these pollinators crucial to our ecosystems and our food supply. This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here by permission of the AAAS for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Science Robotics, Vol. 8, 76, Mar 2023, DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.add7385 https://doi.org/10.1126/scirobotics.add738