Bee nest sniffing dogs?
Kimberly N. Russell
I am a little embarrassed to be asking this question, but we are a friendly, non-judgemental group, yes?? Anyway, I have heard about bumblebee nest sniffing dogs (i.e., https://www.youtube.com/shorts/m6d7mSRUeCQ) and was wondering if we think it might be possible to train a dog to find OTHER native bee nests in the ground. Seems like a significantly harder ask for non-social nesters. And not sure exactly how training would work. But if dogs can detect cancer cells in people, then maybe?
Why did I start thinking about this? Well, I got myself a new pup in December and as soon as we had a few days of spring weather, she became obsessed with the ground. Just stares and listens (she is half German Shepherd and half Husky, with giant pointy ears) as if she can sense the animals awakening in the soil. So it got me thinking. Plus, as many of you know, I have been doing some experiments to try to make supplemental habitats for ground nesting bees and could really use a good technique other than emergence traps to detect colonization. So maybe dogs? Cheaper and logistically easier than fancy imaging equipment (ha!).
Just curious about peoples thoughts on this. Happy St. Patricks Day! ;-)
Thanks,
Kim
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Dr. Kimberly N. Russell (she/her/hers)
Undergraduate Program Director
Associate Professor of Teaching
Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources
Rutgers University, New Brunswick
Office: 124 ENR Building
Phone: 848 932 9383
e-mail: kimberly...@rutgers.edu
web: https://knrussellbeeteam.com
https://krussell-rutgersuniversity.youcanbook.me
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Kit Prendergast
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John Purdy
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mslu...@gmail.com
Hello!
I am responding as an ecologically-focused CT gardener (undergrad biology degree, PhD in science field so understand the rigors of research) with a dog trained for several years in scent-work. We (and other human-canine scent-trained pairs) have been looking for ways in which we might apply our interest in scent-work to ‘real-world’ issues – including the ID of plants/insects/other-related issues of interest.
I’d like to encourage you to explore the development of working-relationships with both professional groups and pet-dog owners.
In the US, there has been work done at Virginia Tech on using ‘citizen-scientist’-dogs to identify invasives (Spotted Lantern Fly, grapevine fungal disease): https://news.vt.edu/articles/2025/05/cals-spotted-lanternfly-dog-study.html
Melissa McCue McGrath (cc’ed on this email) is a dog trainer in Maine who has worked with training dogs to identify the Spotted Lantern Fly. Below (italics): an excerpt from an email where she describes a study in teaching pet dogs to find SLF:
We were able to teach 5 out of my 6 charges to find SLF in the woods using standard nosework and scentwork procedures. Pairing an odor (could be birch oil, could be vanilla from your cabinet, could be freeze killed larva from SLF!) with a highly motivating reinforcer (our dogs used cheese, though toys and other reinforcers) were used across the nation in the study.
The complication is finding SLF eggs that won't hatch that will go on to attract the black mold that kills nearly every crop it lays eggs on. Freeze killing the eggs and putting them in metal mesh was what we ended up getting from the scientists who ran the study.
This won't work for every invasive. We will not be able to do this for brown tailed moth or other venomous creatures that might have barbs in their hair/fur to harm dog's noses, or are toxic in other ways. The dogs cannot do this for every invasive or problem, but it appears through the research, pet dogs WERE able to find SLF with over 80% accuracy! Which...is amazing!
https://melissamccuemcgrath.com/spotted-lantern-fly-work/ has most of the news articles and the videos of library talks I've given on these dogs. There are podcasts in there (link here to podcasts, mostly about SLF https://melissamccuemcgrath.com/podcasts/) if listening is easier!
I think the best way to go if you are serious about this work is maybe reaching out to the K9 Conservation folk https://k9conservationists.org/conservation-canines-isabelle-groc/ as they do the real work day to day, including getting dogs field fit for this work, or Science Dogs of Maine https://www.sciencedogsne.com who also do the same thing.
So: as you consider the possibility of involving dogs in research, please consider also the possibility of involving citizen-scientist volunteers and their scent-trained dogs.
Kind Regards,
Mary Lung’aho
Glastonbury, CT
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 at 8:46 am, Kimberly N. Russell <kimbe...@gmail.com> wrote:
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Roulston, T'ai H (thr8z)
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Douglas Yanega
There is a lot of work developing electronic sensors that can do what dog noses do.
The paper I though was memorable along these lines is one that determined that by mimicking the structure of a dog nose, and how they inhale, the efficacy of the sensors can be improved:
Staymates, M., MacCrehan, W., Staymates, J. et al. Biomimetic Sniffing Improves the Detection Performance of a 3D Printed Nose of a Dog and a Commercial Trace Vapor Detector. Sci Rep 6, 36876 (2016)
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep36876
It's not every day you see scientific papers referring to 3D printed dog noses, that one stuck in my mind.
Slight goofiness aside, it seems to me that if they can develop electronic sensors that can detect trace vapors of specific chemicals, this is more generally useful than using a live animal, since a sensor doesn't need to be trained over a period of time, maintained, or get tired, hungry, or distracted - and switching from one chemical to another is no problem, so the utility is far broader. I would be surprised if this hasn't been used (or attempted) yet for hunting truffles, given the significant commercial incentive.
Humans aren't the only ones whose jobs are threatened by "robots".
Peace,
-- Doug Yanega Dept. of Entomology Entomology Research Museum Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314 phone: 951-827-4315 FaceBook: Doug Yanega (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's) https://faculty.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
Ron Miksha
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2026 10:32 AM
To: mslu...@gmail.com <mslu...@gmail.com>
Cc: johnr...@gmail.com <johnr...@gmail.com>; kitprend...@gmail.com <kitprend...@gmail.com>; kimbe...@gmail.com <kimbe...@gmail.com>; beemon...@googlegroups.com <beemon...@googlegroups.com>; Melissa McCue-McGrath <mmc...@gmail.com>; Zarrillo, Tracy <Tracy.Z...@ct.gov>
Ron Miksha
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2026 10:04 AM
To: johnr...@gmail.com <johnr...@gmail.com>; kitprend...@gmail.com <kitprend...@gmail.com>
Cc: kimbe...@gmail.com <kimbe...@gmail.com>; beemon...@googlegroups.com <beemon...@googlegroups.com>; 'Melissa McCue-McGrath' <mmc...@gmail.com>; 'Zarrillo, Tracy' <Tracy.Z...@ct.gov>
Subject: RE: [Beemonitoring] Bee nest sniffing dogs?