CSIRO, University of Tasmania scientists fit tiny sensors onto honey bees to study behaviour

Scientists in Tasmania are fitting thousands of honey bees with tiny sensors as part of a project aimed at understanding the insect’s behaviour and population decline.

CSIRO is working with the University of Tasmania, beekeepers and fruit growers to trial the monitoring technology, in an attempt to improve honey bee pollination and productivity.

They are fitting tiny sensors to the insects, a process which sometimes involves shaving them first.

“This has been done before,” CSIRO science leader Paulo de Souza said.

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If they can do it to bees they can do it to us man. Mark my words, we will all be compulsorally injected with microchips at birth so The Man can follow us wherever we go and will automatically forward all our brain waves to the CIA, and we will end up as mindless slaves to the new world order.

Aliens won’t need to abduct anyone, they will just hack into the official personal monitoring systems and know where every member of their hive is and what they are doing. It’s the end of civilisation man, mark my words.

How do I get this damn straightjacket off ?

rumpole said:

If they can do it to bees they can do it to us man. Mark my words, we will all be compulsorally injected with microchips at birth so The Man can follow us wherever we go and will automatically forward all our brain waves to the CIA, and we will end up as mindless slaves to the new world order.

Aliens won’t need to abduct anyone, they will just hack into the official personal monitoring systems and know where every member of their hive is and what they are doing. It’s the end of civilisation man, mark my words.

How do I get this damn straightjacket off ?

Don’t be stupid. I’d say more but my smart-phone demands attention.

CrazyNeutrino said:

CSIRO, University of Tasmania scientists fit tiny sensors onto honey bees to study behaviour

Scientists in Tasmania are fitting thousands of honey bees with tiny sensors as part of a project aimed at understanding the insect’s behaviour and population decline.

CSIRO is working with the University of Tasmania, beekeepers and fruit growers to trial the monitoring technology, in an attempt to improve honey bee pollination and productivity.

They are fitting tiny sensors to the insects, a process which sometimes involves shaving them first.

“This has been done before,” CSIRO science leader Paulo de Souza said.
more…

They’ve got so small that the main weight is that of the battery, and the challenge is to find a battery light enough for an insect to wear. Here’s one attached to a dragonfly http://www.lotek.com/bird-bat-beeper-transmitters.htm

I’ve been looking into buying a system similar to this (433 MHz VHF pulse transmitter), though not quite as small because this is single-use and I want multiple use with battery replacement. There’s a website with a fantastic set of images of small wildlife attached to radio transmitters (including birds, bat, frog and weta) that Google can’t seem to find. :(

While on the topic, a yagi antenna suitable for tracking small animals can be made DIY from a tape measure. http://www.instructables.com/id/433-MHz-tape-measure-antenna-suits-UHF-transmitte/