Naslov
Conditioning of honeybees to detect mine odour

Autori
Kezić, Nikola ; Pavković, Nikola ; Gold, Hrvoje, Bajić, Milan

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Izvornik
Speakers' abstracts, Odour detection by animals / - , 2008, 11-11

Skup
Odour detection by animals, Research and practice

Mjesto i datum
Os, Norveška, 16.06.2008. - 20.06.2008

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
honeybees; odour; TNT; food; mine detection

Sažetak
Mine detection system using honeybees has been strongly influenced by fereign and our own experiences, analysis of other systems with similar features and studies of the nature of heneybees. For instance, it is known that honeybees readly condition themselves to new "odours of interest" by switching from one food source to another as various plants come into flower. Mine seeking bees, conditioned by associating volatiles from substances of interest with food rewards, are easily trained. The molecules of the most frequent explosive, TNT (or of its residue DNT) are found to be similar in size and shape to a number of natural substances and may fit into honeybees chemoreceptors. The benefites of the mine detection systen using bees are based not only on the hihgy sensitive olfactory sensors of honeybees and other performances of heneybees, verified in the cours of latest 30 years of researches, but also on the investigated properties of materials and objects to be detected. Bees conditioning procedure, crucial and most important for the active method, is very short and simple. Honeybees are feed with a sugar water mixture in the area of explosive presence in front of the hive. After 1-2 days, bees have learned to associate the food - reward sugar - water with the odour of explosive, and they are capable to detect, with their olfactory sensors, the odour of explosive which navigates them from the distance. Bees persits searching for the source reward following the explosive odour for 1-2 days. Attracted by the odour and seduced by the expected non- existent food source, they concentrate on a centre emanting explosive vapour, fly across and hover above a buried mine. The flight should be monitoring and registrated, the data about it on line captured, collected and processed. Numbers of bees' visits should be integrated over time and compared to those over the rest of area. Using the infra red camera, density of bees over an area should be mapped, and on the basis of the cumulative bee flights above a mine, mine location should be pin- pointed and a landmine map made.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Poljoprivreda (agronomija)

POVEZANOST RADA