Creating von Neumann machines would require a few technologies we don't have yet, including advanced artificial intelligence, miniaturization, and better propulsion systems.
Plants’ leaves are like tiny chemical factories, and changes in temperature and the length of the day affect which molecules the active genes pump out.
So everything in a bee's brain is very elegantly miniaturized in the same way as, I guess, computing equipment is elegantly miniaturized in a mobile phone.
Add to that, no central powerful computer to coordinate the whole affair, and the system seems a shoo-in for miniaturisation — imagine swarms of particle robot surgeons inside your body.
And so what I've done is I actually took a laboratory technique and miniaturized it and basically shrunk it down into the use of underwater housings to make a device that a single scuba diver can use.