WASHINGTON: Microsensors may be the key to solving the mystery behind the collapse of honeybee colonies.
Australian researchers announced Tuesday that they have attached tiny, top-of-the-line trackers to about 10,000 healthy honeybees in an effort to find out what is driving a decline in the pollinators’ global population. The experiment, supported by an international group of scientists, farmers, beekeepers, and tech companies, is the latest to use tracking and tagging technology to study animal behavior and responses to stimuli.
“The tiny technology allows researchers to analyze the effects of stress factors including disease, pesticides, air pollution, water contamination, diet, and extreme weather on the movements of bees and their ability to pollinate,” said Dr. Paulo de Souza, science leader at Australian science agency CSIRO, which helped develop the technology, in a statement. “We’re also investigating what key factors, or combination of factors, lead to bee deaths en masse.”
The tiny sensors, like the electronic tags that monitor cars on toll roads, send data back to receivers – about half the size of a credit card – that are placed in honeybee hives, the BBC reported. The trackers, attached to the pollinators’ backs, weigh about a third of what a bee can carry.
