Insects
From Wiki Against Mines
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The text on this site is published with permission of RAND and taken from "Alternatives of Landmine Detection" Jacqueline MacDonald et.al, RAND report, ISBN 0-8330-3301-8, Document Number: MR-1608-OSTP, Year: 2003
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Bees
Description:
By lacing sugar with a target chemical and placing the sugar in the bees’ natural foraging area, bees can be trained to associate the chemical odor with food and to swarm over any locationcontaining the target odorant. Entomologists have trained bees to detect a variety of explosives and have been researching ways to use trained bees in humanitarian demining. There are two suggested strategies. The first involves monitoring the movement of bees trained to detect explosives and keeping track of the locations where they swarm. The second involves sampling the beehive for the presence of explosives, which can be transported to the hive on the bees’ mop-like hairs. Several field tests have been conducted to investigate the potential use of bees in mine detection. The most recent and comprehensive test involved placing DNT in petri dishes, covering the DNT with sand, and placing the dishes in a flat, open space for subsequent detection by the bees. In these experiments, bees proved capable of detecting DNT concentrations that were estimated to be 0.7–13.0 ppb (approximately 10–12 g per milliliter). Earlier lab testing had indicated that bees could detect concentrations down to 20 ppt.
Strengths:
Trained bees detect explosives and therefore are not limited by the same types of false alarms that plague metal detectors. They also potentially could search a relatively large area in a short time.
Limitations:
As for chemical and bacterial detection systems, more needs to be understood about the fate and transport of explosives in the subsurface before the full potential of trained bees to detect landmines can be understood. To date, no field trials using actual mines have been conducted. Further, bees can only work under limited environmental and weather conditions. They do not work at all at temperatures below 40°F. In addition, all tests to date have been in clear, open fields; whether bees would perform in forested or other heavily vegetated environments is unknown. The inability to track bee movements also currently poses difficulties.
Summary and evaluation:
Continued investigation of the use of bees in mine detection is warranted. Experiments under more realistic conditions could give a better indication of the potential of this method. However, clear decision points should be established for determining whether to continue with research funding, if the method continues to look promising, or to terminate it, if there are insurmountable obstacles.
