Afternoon Play - Hive Mind

By Simon Bovey Sam ..... Tony Bell Amra ..... Ania Sowinski Jackson ..... Michael Shelford Olivia ..... Alison Pettitt Patek ..... David Seddon Jan ..... Lloyd Thomas Directed by Marc Beeby 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...