(Image Credit: Aaron Fernando/Unsplash)
For years, bees have been trained to sniff out explosives. They do this by using their antenna, receiving a food reward in response to detecting traces of bomb-making materials. This detection process is very similar to how bees find pollen to produce honey.
First, researchers use a special vacuum to collect these bees, placing them inside a chamber without causing harm. Afterward, they’re sent to a laboratory where they undergo bomb detection training. But before the bees start that process, researchers put them in a refrigerator that slows down their metabolic rate. Doing so lowers their temperature, which reduces metabolism and movement. Researchers often use this method for easier bee handling and experimentation.
Then, those bees are harnessed into tiny seats. Scientists use an automated bee-loading machine that forces a bee to walk inside a cylinder. All of those cylinders go into a loading tube that pushes each bee into its seat. Once strapped in, scientists release the scent of bomb-making chemical compounds, like C-4, liquid explosives, and dynamite. Afterward, a bee is presented with sugar water on a swab tip, and its proboscis is extended in response. This allows the scientists to determine how well their proboscis extension reflex (PER) works for this training.
As a result, the bees associate the smell of explosive material with sugar water. That causes them to stick out their tongues that wiggle in the air, looking for nectar. It doesn’t take long to get the association right, either, as bees only require a few exposures followed by the reward. The trained bees are put inside a monitoring device housing a camera to closely watch these buzzing insects’ PER in response to certain materials. By using algorithms, the camera’s capture Is converted into the bees’ signal from its PER after sniffing out bomb vapors.
Another technique involves placing the insects in cartridges, which are deployed in a detector containing an infrared LED for every bee. Those lights touch the bees before landing on a light sensor. Depending on how much light it picks up, this light sensor can determine if the bee is sticking out its tongue. Researchers test the detector by keeping it close to the target, and once a bee sticks out its tongue, the square assigned to it turns red.
After working for a few days, the bees are returned to their hives. But they may be put to use in the real world. For example, in 2017, Croatia tested honeybees that found missing landmines and explosives from the Croatian War of Independence that started in 1991 and ended in 1995.
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