Bumblebees are being fitted with tiny backpacks to monitor their natural activities, including the pollination of flowers. Digital receivers in hives will record movements within the colonies in an effort to understand the causes behind recent disappearances of the insects in recent years.
Researchers at the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens in London fitted the miniaturized tracking equipment to the insects. The radio-frequency identification (RFID) devices are normally used to monitor the movement and placement of pallets within warehouses. These transmitters, developed by technology company Tumbling Dice, can be read by trackers more than eight feet away, much farther than any other comparable device. Previous technology limited transmission to just four-tenths of an inch, limiting use to monitoring movement in and out of hives.
"This new technology will open up possibilities for scientists to track bees in the landscape. This piece of the puzzle, of bee behavior, is absolutely vital if we are to understand better why our bees are struggling and how we can reverse their decline," Sarah Barlow of the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens said.
The bees are cooled for about 10 minutes to slow their movements, then the insects are held to a table with pins, without piercing their bodies. The backpack, measuring one-third of an inch long, and one-fifth of an inch wide, is then glued to the insect using epoxy resin, which attaches the transmitter to the bee. Testing took place within a glass house equipped with detectors capable of identifying individual insects.
So far, only about 50 of the transmitters have been built. Further development plans are aimed at designing smaller versions of the device, which could be produced at a commercial level. A network of receivers is planned that will allow researchers to track the insects as they carry out their daily activities in their normal environment.
Bees are responsible for pollinating a wide range of plants, including many crops essential to human health.
Each winter, a portion of bees living in colonies perish due to the cold and scarcity of food. Since 2006, the percentage of bees that die each year has risen, sometimes killing off entire colonies. The reason for this reduction in populations, known as colony collapse disorder (CCD) is still a matter of debate. While the U.S. government notes the presence of the parasite Varroa in many dead colonies, many environmentalists place the blame on the use of pesticides.
This is not the first time bees have met with unexplained deaths, as similar events have been recorded for more than a century.
"In 1903, in the Cache Valley in Utah, 2,000 colonies were lost to an unknown 'disappearing disease' after a 'hard winter and a cold spring.' More recently, in 1995-96, Pennsylvania beekeepers lost 53 percent of their colonies without a specific identifiable cause," the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports.
Photo: Swallowtail Garden Seeds | Flickr
