Bees are the most-researched insect in the world. Yet there is so much more to discover! Study of bee behavior can affect our own lives. How do bees compute the shortest routes between flowers, while we use computer programs to do the same thing? What do bees learn through orientation flights? How do bees pollinate rare tropical flowers, located miles apart? Bees are even being used to locate buried landmines by odor!

The oldest form of bee tracking is called “bee lining.” It is a way to find a beehive. It consists of setting up bait boxes and either triangulating or following bees back to their hive. There are several variations of this tracking technique, and it is successfully used by researchers to find beehives.

So, you already know the location of the beehive. To learn where bees go and how they get there, bees are fit with a tiny “radio collar,” in the form of a radio frequency ID (RFID) chip. It emits a unique radio frequency that can be detected even during flight. RFIDs have helped scientists answer some of the flight questions. However, there is some concern that, no matter how light this “radio collar” is, the bee’s flight path will be affected. Furthermore, if you want to track 1700 bees, you have to attach 1700 chips!

LiDAR, Light Detection and Ranging, is the latest news in the tracking of bees. With this technique, bees can be tracked without the “bee bling.” One current and exciting application of LiDAR isn’t in the area of bee research at all. Instead, bees are being used to save people’s lives. The bees are trained to follow the odor of TNT and DNT to its source, very possibly buried landmines. LiDAR is used to track the bees to the location, safely, from the air.