Randy asked when we were going to produce a chem sensor to sniff colonies  
for diseases, mites, etc.
 
That's an obvious approach, but may not be the best, given current  
technologies.  After 33 years of sampling everything from ag chemicals,  pesticides, 
industrial pollutants, military chemicals, urban materials,  radioactive 
fallout, and even biological agents (from microbial pesticides to  anthrax 
surrogates), we know a little bit about chem sampling.
 
The reasons that we don't have a field portable, do-it-all sensor  include:
 
1) Cost -- good analytical instruments can run from 10s  to 100s of thousands 
of dollars,
2) Specificity -- even the best instruments and sensors have a limited or  
narrow range of types of chemicals that can be  reliably detected.  
    - In the lab, we use different instruments and  often different labs to 
cover all of the chemicals that we would need to examine  -- if you want to 
protect/assess colony health, you are going to need to be able  to detect 
materials indicative of each disease and pest (often unknown) and  you'd ideally want 
to look for other things like build up of  residues/vapors from things like 
miticides, contaminants like HMF from bad  syrup, etc.
3) Sensitivity -- most field portable instruments give up sensitivity for  
size, battery life, etc.
4) Availability -- in many cases the technology still does not exist.  
Surprisingly, we can't find good information on the chemicals that give foul  brood 
such a distinctive odor, much less a sensor.
5) Funding -- we get some very large grants, but our funding agencies  have 
very specific interests and place restrictions on our expenditures -- we  are a 
university-based and private company organization -- all of our $$ come  from 
clients with specific interests, and those are mainly the military.  
 
We get no money from the university, state, or any federal agency for day  to 
day expenditures, discretionary research.  We're in a mode that one of  my 
colleagues calls: data for dollars.  We'd love to get some funding to  look at 
things like designing sensors for sampling hives -- but this again is  high 
cost work - a few thousand dollars won't cover the R&D.
 
Let's take a look at some examples from our chem sampling  experience -- to 
look at volatile and sem-volatile industrial and military  contaminants, we use 
a Gas Chromatograph/Mass Spectrometer with a thermal  desorption unit -- for 
the whole system, including sampling pumps, we've  spent about $250,000 -- and 
10 years ago, we spent $175k for our first unit,  which has worn out.  Cost 
is probably the reasons that we were using vapor  sampling systems in 1995, 
while the national bee labs have only recently started  using similar approaches.
 
But, our GC/MS instruments are not set up to do pesticides.   Another lab in 
another department, with about $500,000 in instruments does  that.
 
Heavy metals, trace elements -- we use Inductively Coupled Plasma  
Spectrometry (ICP) - unless we are looking from arsenic, mercury - then we  either 
interface yet another device with the ICP or switch to Atomic Absorption  
Spectrometry.  Radionuclides -- whole different lab and instruments.
 
None of these instruments are appropriate for field use, and samples often  
have to be prepped prior to analysis - which can take a day or more.
 
We have used field portable instruments - ranging from simple to  
state-of-the-art, not yet available to the public or even commercial labs.   Examples 
include FIDO, the explosives sniffing unit that is slowing gaining  acceptance, 
and much more recent instruments including the SANDIA labs HOUND  unit, Oak 
Ridge Lab's suitcase-sized ion trap, and we hope to try an very small  portable, 
ion trap that SANDIA intends to test next summer.  So far, none  are 
appropriate for evaluating colony health.
 
Two new areas of research that may help solve this problem are  polymer-based 
sensors and nano-based instruments.  I regularly review  proposals in these 
areas -- the polymers are exciting, offer simple, low cost  devices for 
detecting specific chemicals.  Problem is, there doesn't seem  to be a good way of 
designing materials for particular needs, its more of a  trial and error process 
with different materials.  For example, FIDO does  well at detecting DNT, so 
it seemed like it would be easy to find a polymer for  TNT -- not nearly as 
easy as it sounds - after several years, I believe they're  still trying to find 
the elusive material to use in the sensor.
 
So, in the meantime, we wait for the technological breakthrough, and we  
consult with other scientists who do have some funding to look at things like  
foul brood detection.  We continue to look for funding to develop some of  these 
sensors -- but its easier to get federal funding to find chem warfare  agents, 
meth labs, or dead bodies than it is to get the level of funding needed  to 
pioneer new tools for detecting chemicals inside beehives that have use by  
beekeepers.  Unfortunately, beekeeping has a much more limited commercial  
potential in terms of sales then does army force protection or homeland  security, 
and monitoring honey bee health doesn't have the public  concern/support 
afforded human health protection.  And other than USDA, few  other federal agencies 
recognize the strategic importance of honey bees and  pollination in terms of 
protecting our nation's food supply chain.
 
This does not mean that we aren't always looking for simple sensors that  can 
detect bee problems, especially since we intend to start testing, hopefully  
marketing pallets that can monitor things like weight changes in bee colonies, 
 hive temperatures, and weather - transmitting this all to the beekeeper via  
satellite, for a cost of about $5 per month -- maybe as early as this  summer.
 
We also think that we have a different way of monitoring the health of bee  
colonies -- one that uses sound, not chemicals.  Early results are exciting  -- 
we can detect varroa mites, foul brood, queenless colonies, some races of  
bees, should be able to predict swarms, and are guessing that we can detect hive 
 beetle, using a simple acoustic probe - with no need to open the hive, and 
with  a result in under 2 minutes.
 
We've applied to federal agencies for funding to make this happen -- which  
is iffy and will take months/years.  We're also going to be at the national  
beekeeping meetings, talking about this new approach on which we've filed for  
U.S. and Canadian patent.  We're looking for investors (beekeepers,  growers, 
hopefully the national beekeeping organizations).  With sufficient  funds, we 
could have a couple of dozen handheld units in the field next summer  for 
testing by large commercial beekeepers and bee researchers.
 
Keep your fingers crossed, and we will be delighted to talk to you in  
January.
 
Cheers
 
Jerry
 
J.J. Bromenshenk

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