While I find the drone bee an interesting insect as they only make up about 1-2% of a hive of 50,000 female worker bees or more who collect the pollen and nectar, protect the hive and raise a new queen and when the time is right she flies out of the hive to mate with several drones.
It seems to be their sole purpose in the hive’s life cycle is its procreation.
Essentially, it is a flying robot capable of carrying a payload for various tasks.
While the concept has been around for decades its only in the 10 years or so that they’ve come into prominence.
The United States army’s stealth drone was designed to evade detection and used for intelligence-gathering, reconnaissance and potentially combat operations.
I think the modern drone has been given the wrong name because they are workers.
The first one I was familiar with was a glorified toy and could be bought for a few dollars a but now they are capable of lifting over 1000kg.
In the last few years different businesses, organisations and government departments are finding more and more uses, such as traffic monitoring, aerial photography, surveying and police crowd surveillance.
But the drone is also revolutionising agriculture as Kiwi ingenuity makes them bigger and adapts them to perform tasks once restricted to helicopters or fixed winged planes.
On the farm, Cameron engaged a company with drones to spray gorse in a couple of steep gullies.
The drone carried 50 litres of chemical, calibrated to be of the strength and volume if it was sprayed by a helicopter, and was cheaper.
Three months on, the gorse is not healthy, but 12 months on will tell the full story.
Small ones can be used for stock handling.
Will every farmer have one, if they prove to be cost-effective?
They can perform tasks like spraying crops, spreading fertilisers and insecticides, sowing seeds on steep country, pest control and even firefighting.
There are rules, regulations, training and costs regarding bigger drones that pilots must adhere to.
