Hive Mind

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Simon Bovey - Hive Mind

Drama: SciFi & Fantasy

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Simon Bovey - Hive Mind

2019. The bee is extinct. Can new technology provide the answer? Stars Tony Bell.

4 Extra Debut. The near future. The bee is extinct. Can a controversial technology provide a solution for farmer Sam Clark? Stars Tony Bell.

Spring in 2019 is not the riot of colour it used to be. The honeybee is now officially extinct.

Farmer Sam Clark struggles to raise a crop worth a damn. But man has adapted.

Every spring an army of migrant workers, led by foreman Amra Walczak, descends on Sam's farm to pollinate by hand. It is a laborious process but it works. This spring, however, science offers a new solution, Honeybots, tiny robots that are effectively crawling bees, and Sam's put his farm forward for a trial.

Once released, thousands of Honeybots course through the fields, pollinating the flowers in a fraction of the time it takes Amra and her team.

Their job done they return automatically to their hive chest. They are quick and efficient.

That evening, however, dead birds and mice are found in the fields the Honeybots have worked...

Simon Bovey's sci-fi thriller from 2010 — but set in 2019.

Sam ..... Tony Bell
Amra ..... Ania Sowinski
Jackson ..... Michael Shelford
Olivia ..... Alison Pettitt
Patek ..... David Seddon
Jan ..... Lloyd Thomas

Director: Marc Beeby

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2010.

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