Can a Tiny Microphone Save the Bees — and the Food Supply? University of Montana Entomologist Jerry Bromenshenk listens for clues.
| June 12, 2007 |  View for printing |
Jerry Bromenshenk http://beekeeper.dbs.umt.edu/bees/ threads a tiny microphone through the front of a standard wooden-box beehive. The mic is flexible and about as thick as spaghetti, so it can be inserted without disturbing the honeybees. Not that there are many bees left to disturb. Bromenshenk, an entomologist at the University of Montana, has decided to wire this hive because he believes it's in the early stages of "colony collapse disorder," a syndrome that has caused the deaths of billions of bees nationwide — and baffled scientists.
Colony collapse disorder is bad news for anyone who eats. Typically, almost a third of an American's diet comes from fruits and vegetables, which require pollination, and no technology gets the job done as effectively as Apis mellifera, the humble honeybee. Wild bee populations in the US have declined steadily over the past half century, and today most of the remaining 2.4 million colonies are domesticated. To pollinate their crops, farmers rely almost completely on the latter — and now these hives are endangered, too.
Full Story: http://www.wired.com/science/planete ... 5-06/ps_bee
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