Yes, this is a version of the RFID technology that we pioneered, and their
chips are much larger than the ones we developed with PNNL. We ended that
line of investigation when we realized that:
1) the chips hindered long-distance flight and search activity, and
2) no one in their right mind would tags tens to hundreds of thousands of
bees on the scale of the bee search population (trained foragers) that we fly.
Even if you made a robotic tagging line, you'd still have problems tagging
huge numbers of bees. And, the more bees that fly, the better the probability
that some will find the target of interest.
Dogs are great, but they work one at a time, with a handler, on the end of a
leash. The power of using bees for search is to take off the leash,
dramatically increase the number of searchers.
The Mayo Institute followed up our work with a 'grain of salt' transmitter,
that met specifications that I outlined in terms of size, weight, etc. They
offered it for licensing.
But by that time, we had our laser systems that could track bees without the
need for a tag. These systems get better and smaller each year, so we don't
need RFIDs for bees. We can map every bee across a field with lasers that
key on the flash from the wing.
I would like to have a tiny RFID - and by tiny, I mean much smaller than the
ones just described.
We never got a truly AFFORDABLE, tiny RFID tag for research or beekeeper
use.
We're open to any developments in this area. Raytheon just published in
Forbes an article about a small RFID tag that they are producing and tested in
Florida. I'd assume they may find that patenting this could pose a problem,
since many versions of tags (RFID and others) for bees exist, have been
published, and other groups have patented two-way radio communications tags for
this purpose.
As most of you know, we pioneered the use of bees to search out explosives,
dead bodies, meth labs, etc. , and that The University of Montana holds the
patents on conditioning bees for search purposes.
Finding the bees has been an obstacle that we've worked to overcome, and
we've now got both laser and image processing systems that can do the trick -
RFIDs would have limited use in this context. Our experience shows that
radio-frequency signals often get blocked by vegetation, especially with small
responders. Obviously, we can't see around corners with our laser and video
systems, but we can track bees from multiple vantage points.
So, we'll stick to our stand-off systems that look at free-flying bees. No
interference with their search, nor limits in terms of numbers of searchers
that we can follow/map.
As per CCD and where the bees go, the problem is catching a colony or
colonies as they go out the door - not in imaging or tracking them per se.
Jerry
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