Towards an Embodied Biohybrid Robotic Platform for Interaction with Honeybees

Robotic interaction with insects in a controlled yet unobtrusive manner is essential for advancing research in biology and biohybrid systems. Micro-robots offer a unique opportunity for such interaction due to their small size, adaptability, and potential for integration into complex biological environments. In this paper, we present a biohybrid robotic platform designed to detect and follow the position of a queen bee projected onto a screen using real video recordings from our observation hives. The robot can identify the location of queen and execute movement strategies to maintain specific spatial configurations with her, emulating behaviours of the queen's retinue bees. This queen-following capability establishes a controlled experimental framework for studying future insect-robot interactions and sets the stage for embodied robotic agents that may eventually operate inside honeybee colonies.