Honey bees help warn poisons

The buzzing of honey bees changes when it comes in contact with different chemicals. Scientists plan to take advantage of this to detect toxins.

The US military is very interested in finding a way to quickly detect a cloud of poison gas, and honey bees are a perfect candidate because " people and honey bees have similar sensitivities to many chemicals ", Jerry Bromenshenk from Bee Alert Technology Institute, said.

Bromenshenk and colleagues exposed bees to different poisons and found that they could hear the change in the buzz of this insect.

"We see bees responding in less than 30 seconds in the presence of a toxic chemical. But what is really surprising is that the sound they produce can reveal what that chemical is." Researchers cannot hear these sounds directly, so they use a sensitive detection system, similar to speech recognition software.

Bromenshenk said he and his colleagues hope to transfer the technology to a handheld device that can detect a poison immediately.

(Photo: Sarah Greenleaf)

T. An