Bee Alert!

For thirty years, UM has been researching bees and their ability to find pollutants, explosives, and now, biological and chemical agents. This summer was one of their biggest accomplishments. They’ve proved bees can identify actual land mines, and that they have lasers to locate the bees when they’re done. http://beekeeper.dbs.umt.edu/bees/

Author: Gina Titus KECI TV

http://www.keci.com/index3.cfm?sec=news&detail=yes&StoryID=6770&CFID=903204&CFTOKEN=14740507

"We showed we could find real land mines in a real mine field and that we had the technology to find the bees because you don’t want to walk in the mine field to see where the bees are at," said Jerry Bromenshenk, Research Professor.

Now Bromenshenk is talking with government agencies about bees locating bio-terrorism weapons. He’s also putting together a team to respond to some of the Homeland Security initiatives. Bromenshenk says bees can help defend our borders, and can tell if someone has been testing chemical or biological agents.

"If you wanted to go to Iraq and search for those weapons of mass destruction they’re having so much trouble finding, each bee hive can survey several miles of area, so you’d have a better chance of finding that needle in a haystack," said Bromenshenk.

Right now, they’re training the bees to actually seek out certain odors by tricking them into thinking the odor, usually an explosive, is a flower.

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