Walmart may be building drone army of robot bees to pollinate crops

Walmart has quietly filed a patent for robot bees that could be used to pollinate crops just like real bees — suggesting that the discount retail giant could be branching out into farming.

The “autonomous robotic bees” would act like drones, carrying pollen from one plant to another, using sensors and cameras to find crops, according to Business Insider, which said that an online research from known as CB Insights first unearthed the patent paperwork.

Walmart’s plan for the patent was unclear, but the move may mean that the company hoped to grow more of the food it sells to ensure greater control over its food supply chain.

The retailer announced Wednesday that it will expand its grocery delivery service this year to more than 800 stores that can serve about 40 percent of American households, according to the Web site.

Walmart was not the first organization to create a robot bee as a substitute for actual honeybees, whose populations have been in decline.

Harvard University researchers introduced the first RoboBees in 2013. Those bee-size robots could only fly and hover midair and had to be attached to a power source.

Newer RoboBees can stick to surfaces, swim underwater and dive in and out of water.

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