At 03:11 PM 6/6/1999 -0700, you wrote:

David Malachy commented on an article in Popular Science and on our work,
both to the list and to me.

To set the record straight.  The British technology was pioneered by Joe
Riley and others - and it works for a large array of insect studies.  In
Canada it  has been used on butterflies and other flying insects.  If you
really want to know whether things like transgenic plants effect
free-flying insects, you need some tools to find out where they are going.
However, the British system is too expensive for routine use.

We are using a variation on this theme that is much less expensive and have
added some other microelectronic technologies.  These are real, not science
fiction.

With respect to some comments that we have recieved about posting our work
to the list.  I have not posted any of the articles on bees finding things
like landmines to this list, nor have I sent any such postings to
individual members of this list, unless asked to do so.

Our purpose is to build on the bee's proven capability to find things.
Landmines are just one of the things on our wish list.  We are just as
interested in using bees to find useful things.  The landmine issue got
press coverage because one of our research partners specializes in finding
mines.

The original article profiled Sandia's overall landmine effort and
mentioned that they were looking at the cycling of explosives from water
through soil to plants and to bees.  We know that happens, we have hard
data to that effect.  Whether we can train bees to find landmines remains
to be seen.  All landmines leak, but do they leak substances that bees can
detect by odor or some other means is one of the questions being investigated.






>Popular Science, Febuary 1977 reports:
>
>"BEES AND OTHER pollinators are disappearing
>in distressing numbers worldwide, so British
>researchers are experimenting with a harmless
>way to track the insects and gather informat-
>ion that could help preserve them.  A radar
>tracking system emits a signal;  an antenna
>weighing only three milligrams that's affixed
>to a bee reradiates the frequency,  so the
>insect's travel can be monitored."  Institute
>of Arable Crops Research-Rothamsted, Harpenden,
>Hertfordshire, AL5 2JQ, England.
>
>An interesting addition to the effort documented
>by Dr. Jerry Bromshenk at University of Montana.
>I thought it was a joke? Nevertheless, how far
>could this reseach get?
>
>dm
>
>