Training bees to detect cancer

A Portuguese designer has created a device that can detect cancer using honey bees.

>>>Training examination dogs

Portuguese designer Susana Soares first trained honey bees by smelling certain smells before feeding them a mixture of water and sugar. The bees can then memorize lifelong odors, if they are regularly fed a mixture of water and sugar.

A device can detect cancer using bees

After completing the training, the bees are placed in a glass box with 2 compartments of different sizes. The patient will breathe into a larger area. Susana said if bees fly into smaller compartments, this means bees have detected the disease.

Discovered at a conference last month in Eindhoven (Netherlands), Susana said: 'Trained bees only fly to smaller compartments if they detect that the odor in the patient's breath is similar to their smell smell when training. Bees can be trained within 10 minutes'.

Susana and her colleagues believe that trained children can accurately detect diseases such as tuberculosis, lung cancer and skin diseases as well as diabetes.

Scientists found that honeybees have an extremely sensitive sense of smell than dogs. Bees can be trained to detect bombs. Currently, a company called Insectinel is training bee evaporators to take part in anti-terrorism activities.