Anyone who has watched this season of Dr Who will know that this is a worrying time for beekeepers as swathes of the bee population around the world die off.
I recently reviewed a book called The Buzz about Bees and I was amazed.
It looked like a boring textbook, but actually it was an absolutely fascinating book, beautifully illustrated. I realized just how little I knew about bees – and how much there was to know, particularly about the way a colony of bees acts as a single organism.
It really inspired the latent scientist in me – I know other people are doing this already, but I thought how wonderful it would be to program colonies of robots to act in a similar way and try to develop a robotic superorganism. (Yes, I know it would be easier to simulate it on computer, but the robots would be more fun.) It’s something I can imagine spending years absorbed in.
Perhaps the only surprise was that this 2008 book has no mention of those dying bee colonies. But it really inspired me to think, which must be the essential accolade for all good popular science.
I like my women like I like my coffee…
Covered in bees.
Sorry, had to be done.
I’m being really thick here, Richard, but I don’t get it.
Bamboozled in Glasgow
Eddie Izzard
Phew, I thought I was the only one who didn’t get it.
You are onto something here, Bryan. Swarm theory and swarm intelligence have been around for a long time. Swarm robotics wasn’t far behind, based on studies of insect colonies. Plotting a career move?
No, Anna, I love writing too much (and it has been far too long) – but I felt that stirring that if I were to go back to real science in some parallel universe then attempting to parallel the bees’ superorganism in robotic form is something that would really appeal.
I was vaguely aware of swarm robotics, but it was just the fascinating nature of the bees’ collective superorganism that inspired a desire to tinker with a robotic equivalent.
I wonder if this sort of thing inspired the Borg – I’m sure it was inspired by some insect colony – there is a queen at the centre, after all.
I don’t get it either.
It did remind me of when I was an intern at the BBC World Service, more years ago than I care to count, when it was my turn to get the coffee. I asked one of the senior journalists (whom I will not name for obvious reasons) how he liked his coffee.
“Big and black, like my women,” came the reply.