The bees fitted with microchips to find out why they're dying
Pastor Dale Morgan
The bees fitted with microchips to find out why they're dying*
By Claire Cohen
Daily Mail
Last updated at 11:11 PM on 26th June 2008
It is a remarkably hairy close-up.
But this tiny microchip attached to a bee’s back will hopefully explain
why so many honeybees are dying from disease.
Professor Juergen Tautz and his team at the University of Wurzburg in
Germany are studying the health of more than 150,000 bees, in the hope
of halting the apparently inexorable decline in their worldwide population.
Creating a buzz: A tiny chip will revolutionise the study of individual bees
Bees have always been tricky to study individually.
Each colony has around 50,000 members, all interacting simultaneously
and making it near-impossible to observe them.
Previously, each bee would be painted with a different-coloured dot on
its back and scientists would video the colony — watching the tape
endlessly, to try to work out the behaviour in each insect.
But a revolutionary technology enables the study of bees at close
quarters. As soon as a bee hatches, a tiny radio frequency
identification (RFID) microchip is stuck to its back using a lacquer.
This allows scientists to study its behaviour throughout its life.
The bee will be unaware of the chip as it weighs only 2mg — a typical
bee weighing in at 70mg can carry its own body weight.
Once it has been chipped, each bee has a serial number, and a scanner on
the outside of the hive (like a supermarket one) registers its movement
every time it leaves or enters.
The data allows scientists to determine the health of every bee — how
many trips it is taking, how soon after hatching it collects pollen and
how much food it gathers.
The scientists also hope to discover why some bees live for just four
weeks and others up to ten months.
They also put the bees through a rigorous programme in the hope of
training them to be ‘sniffer bees’ capable of detecting explosives and
suicide bombers.
The bees are conditioned to stick out their tongues (or proboscis) when
they detect a certain scent — for example, that of explosives.
Each time they do so, they receive a drop of their favourite tipple —
sugar solution — and they rapidly learn to associate the smell with
receiving food.
Before long, they will stick out their tongues whenever the scent of
explosives is present, in anticipation of the sugar.
And by watching their tongues, scientists can use them as sniffer bees.
There are three colonies involved in this scheme — involving 150,000
bees — but it can be expensive.
Although the microchips cost just £1.20 each, they are lost for ever
once the bees die outside the hive.