Sensors track bee behaviour

One third of our food, including fruits and vegetables, and 70% of our crops are pollinated by honey bees, so their rapid plummet is causing worries everywhere about the future food security of our planet.

Australian research organisation CSIRO is leading the global initiative for honey bee health – an worldwide collaboration of researchers, beekeepers, farmers, industry, and technology companies aimed at better understanding what is harming bees and finding solutions to help secure crop pollination.

The sensors, no bigger than a grain of rice, will track all the bees’ movements in and out of their beehives, beaming back information to scientists.

As part of the initiative, thousands of bees are to be fitted with RFIDs or radio frequency identification micro-sensors, which scientists called tiny high-tech backpacks.

To date, there are regions on the planet where the suffering of bees already reached a critical point that is mainly due to the Varroa mite and colony collapse disorder that destroyed millions of bee colonies and hives.

Bees are very small but extremely vital to the world.

“It tells us about their changes in behaviour – how often and how long they’re foraging, whether they’re feeding, whether they’re collecting pollen, what they’re doing in the hives”.

“We’re also investigating what key factors, or combination of factors, lead to bee deaths on mass”.

Now, though, researchers are taking a closer look at what’s affecting bees with the help of the tiny sensors placed on adult bees.

Intel’s sensors work similar to vehicle e-tags, recording when the insect passes the device as a checkpoint.

Dr Saul Cunningham, a CSIRO pollination researcher, says that Australia is lucky to have not been impacted by the Varroa mite so far.

“This puts Australia in a good position to act as a control group for research on this major issue that could one day become our problem too”, said Cunningham.

Researchers hope the live data and their environmental knowledge (so whether pesticides are being used in the area, or if extreme weather has past) will give them important insights.

“The time is now for a tightly-focused, well-coordinated national and global effort, using the same shared technology and research protocols, to help solve the problems facing honey bees worldwide before it is too late”, Professor de Souza said.