With honey bee populations in many parts of the world totter on the boundary , scientists are jumble to try and calculate out what exactly is driving their decline . From pesticides and habitat loss to parasites and uttermost atmospheric condition , many unlike causes have been implicated . This has run to an international grouping of scientists , in association with beekeepers and tech companies , to developminuscule sensors to give chase the movements of bee .
count just 5.4 milligrams ( 0.0002 ounces ) , which is easy than the total weight unit of pollen bees normally collect in a head trip , the tiny sensors are glue to the spinal column of individual worm and will continue there for good . They will be used in junction with Intel ’s Edison boards , which will be fitted into the entrance to the hive . Around the size of it of half a course credit card , they will lumber data about the bee ' comings and passing .
“ What we are gather with the sensing element is environmental information from where the bees have been , ” Gary Fitt , from Australia’sCommonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation(CSIRO ) , toldAFP . CSIRO is heading the Global Initiative for Honey Bee Health . The sensors will reserve the researchers to supervise any changes in bees behavior , for example how long they forage for , or what they ’re up to in their hives . “ We can then see if we can interpret those changes to assure us how they are responding to different stress , ” Fitt added .
The scientists at CSIRO have already managed to chase after 10,000 beloved bees in Tasmania and plan on send the tech out to Brazil , North America and Europe to get a global position on what could be induce population losses . Using the same approach and ask similar questions to standardize the studies , eventuallythey want to have around 1,000 nettle rash fitted with the Edison boards , and over 2.5 million individual bee tagged .
The tags are effectively like the tiny e - tags retrieve on car . Each one has an individual number and will record the clip each bee expend away from the beehive , how far they travel , and their level of exposure topesticides and air pollution . Every time a sensing element crack by the Edison instrument panel this information is log and then sent wirelessly to scientists for rendition .
Australia is the utter control for studies looking into honey bee deportment and their decline . While in almost all other places , from Brazil to the United Kingdom , the deadlyVarroamite has overspread and infect hives cause them to give way , it is yet to get through Australia . This puts the country in a special , yet precarious view , with the looming menace that the parasite will finally spread here and devastate the manufacture .
It is hoped that this massive subject field of how the bees are coping will help to better inform direction plans and how to deal with the multitude of threats currently face honey bees today .
