Trained bees at airports

[JohnofBlagdon]

I attended a lecture a couple of years ago, where a lady from the company developing this bee-powered tester told us about how they train the bees (it takes just a few minutes, as opposed to three or four months for a dog). When the bee senses the smell it's been trained to detect, it sticks it's tongue out, which breaks an infra-red beam, thus lighting up the relevant indicator on the panel. There are about thirty bees in each unit, which has a low powered fan to waft the air past the bees.

The company is situated near the National Bee Unit, and are also able to train bees to detect different kinds of cancer in humans, by the small.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I attended a lecture a couple of years ago, where a lady from the company developing this bee-powered tester told us about how they train the bees (it takes just a few minutes, as opposed to three or four months for a dog). When the bee senses the smell it's been trained to detect, it sticks it's tongue out, which breaks an infra-red beam, thus lighting up the relevant indicator on the panel. There are about thirty bees in each unit, which has a low powered fan to waft the air past the bees.

Yes that's what was shown in the program

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

(it takes just a few minutes, as opposed to three or four months for a dog). .

lifespan of bee - 4/5 weeks, useful working lifespan of drugs dog - five to ten years probably, much less of a fiddle getting it into its harness in the morning, happy enough on its own in the kennel at night. As I said before, compared to the methods we use now (both mechanical and canine) this looks way too much of a fiddle to be of any practical use. In my view just another one of these ideas dreamt up in someone's ivory towers - a customs examination area is not a laboratory - that's the big difference

 

[The Cumbrian]

I will take the liberty of transferring a post made by Andrea Cardona in the thread I started "Security Bees" (I hope they don't mind.)

Have a look at

http://blogs.computerworld.com/17828...ing_biohackers

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Page not founbd - whatever it was?

 

[The Cumbrian]

Must be the way I did the link.

Try this.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/17828/police_bees_for_surveillance_tracking_and_buzzzsting_biohackers

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Now that must be one of the cleverest April fool's joke I've seen for a long time.

When I stop laughing I may just point out a few of the clues

 

[drstitson]

JBM - lucky you have beek up your sleeve for job security purposes.

sounds a great idea - essentially automated system with "digital" readout. easy to check EVERY bag as it passes the system. so what if bees die every 6 weeks if only take minutes to train.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Thought it sounded familiar

 

[Erichalfbee]

JBM - lucky you have beek up your sleeve for job security purposes.

sounds a great idea - essentially automated system with "digital" readout. easy to check EVERY bag as it passes the system. so what if bees die every 6 weeks if only take minutes to train.

But a very salient point made earlier is that if it takes seconds to train a bee how long before wafting non trained target air will it take for that bee to be untrained?What percentage of scanned items are positive?
Will you have to feed that bee every time the trained scent is encountered to reinforce that training?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

JBM - lucky you have beek up your sleeve for job security purposes.

sounds a great idea - essentially automated system with "digital" readout. easy to check EVERY bag as it passes the system. so what if bees die every 6 weeks if only take minutes to train.

Although I think this idea is only good on paper and not very practical (a sure fire indicator that the civil service will take it on at twice the cost that it's offered at!) maybe I could convince them to give me home worker status - I could even contract to supply some of my home grown bees - at a very reasonable cost of course!!

 

[louiseww]

Exactly what I thought Dishmop!