Tens of thousands of honey bees around the world could soon be carrying tiny electronic sensors on their backs as part of a "swarm sensing" program championed by the CSIRO to obtain a bee's-eye perspective on the cause of the alarming rise in the insects' mortality rate.
CSIRO physicist Professor Paulo de Souza, from the research body's office of the chief executive science leader, said if the trend was not halted, it would affect the pollination of plants and crops and result in an agricultural calamity. About 30 per cent of the food we eat, including strawberries, apples, pears almonds, cherries and most citrus fruit crops, largely rely on bee pollination.
"The worst case scenario would be in developing countries," said Professor de Souza. "You would see starvation, people fleeing from borders - very similar to the situation you saw in the droughts of the '80s [in places such as] Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia."
He said that while developed countries would have ways to minimise the impact, many farms and orchards would become economically unsustainable, leading to a spike in the price of fruit and vegetables.
The sensors are tiny radio frequency identification (RFID) tags measuring 2.5 x 2.5 millimetres and weighing 5.4 milligrams.
To attach one of these devices to a bee, the insect is briefly refrigerated in order to slow down its metabolism. Then the tag is secured to the bee's back with an adhesive. Dr de Souza said the tag weighs about one-third of the bee's body weight. He said the tag causes a slight change in the way a bee flies and results in it only being able to carry two-thirds of its normal payload of water, pollen and nectar.
The sensors work much like an e-tag on a car. A reader fitted inside the hive is able to register as many as 50 tags simultaneous. The information is then transmitted back to the researchers.
The data will enable scientists to compile a comprehensive three-dimensional model of bee activity and to visualise the insects' movements and flight paths.
The program is being run in collaboration with the United States semiconductor manufacturer Intel. The company will supply its postage stamp-sized computer kit called the Intel Edison, which will form the backbone of the study's technology, at a cost of $400 for each hive.
The program, which began in Tasmania 18 months ago, is now also being used in Brazil. Dr de Souza said he has had many inquiries from other parts of the world and hopes to extend the project soon to Mexico, Costa Rica, Argentina and the United Kingdom. Bees in the radioactive area of Chernobyl, in Ukraine, will also be part of the study.
To date, 15,000 bees in Australia and Brazil have been fitted with the RFID tags.
"My dream would be to see something around 1000 hives [added to the program] with a year," he said. "If we get to that number we will definitely have very robust data. It will allow us to understand the stresses on bees in many aspects."
Bee populations, especially in the northern hemisphere, have been decimated in recent years by a phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) which causes bees to abandon their hives. Other threats include the destructive Varroa mite and, in Australia, a virulent gut parasite called nosemosis. The CSIRO says bee colonies are susceptible to the effects of pesticides, climate change and other environmental factors and the study will help identify potential remedies.
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