Colony collapse disorder relates to the untimely death of honey bees in millions across the world for no plausible reason. This is cause for worry as bees are responsible for pollination of global crops. No bees means no pollination, which in turn means no food production for humanity. Can this possible global food crisis be solved by a science project at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences?

Researchers here have been working on a robotic solution to honey bees. They have been working on robot bees, which are half the size of a paper clip. Although they are called bees, they are actually based on the model of a fly and have very thin wings capable of flapping a hundred and twenty times in just one second.

Robert J. Wood has led the Robo Bee project for the last 12 years and this year they have finally come up with a working prototype. Everything had to be custom built to make the prototype as no such technology or equipment existed beforehand. The tiny carbon fiber body of the robotic insect is a little miracle of modern science, but will it be enough to fight the challenge ahead? Only more science experiments to perfect the model will tell.