Posted on 05/07/2021 1:32:18 AM PDT by Libloather
Bees have an excellent sense of smell to detect chemicals, such as pheromones, and Dutch scientists are using their natural power to identify samples infected with coronavirus.
Scientists in the bio-veterinary research laboratory at Wageningen University trained the insects by giving them sugary water after as a reward for spotting the virus in samples and no reward after being shown a non-infected sample.
After numerous tests, the bees were able to spontaneously extend their tongues to receive a reward when presented with an infected sample, said Wim van der Poel, a professor of virology who took part in the project.
The team says that a trained bee is capable of detecting an infected sample in just a few seconds, which drastically reduces wait times of current methods.
'We collect normal honeybees from a beekeeper and we put the bees in harnesses,' he said. 'Right after presenting a positive sample we also present them with sugar water. And what the bees do is they extend their proboscis to take the sugar water.'
Researchers used the Pavlovian condition method to train the bees, which is a learning process through association.
Each time the bees were exposed to the scent of an infected sample, they received a sugar water reward.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Pfizer will come out with bee robot drones that can do the same thing IF Biden will pay Pfizer $2 billion from taxpayers’ money.
Wow, I know it is much more rare, almost cured now, butt I wonder if the bees can detect the regular flu as well...
ROFL
MAO
Covid cured the flu, but made Math racist...
So they trained bees to like sugar?
Anything that is/was good is now racist... math, science
Whites...
Ward what about the BEAVER?
// ...we put the bees in harnesses... //
Babylon Bee, is that you?
How long still they start using Giant Asian Murder Hornets...
Ping
BeeFreeping Ping List. FReepmail me if you want on or off.
As a beekeeper this doesn’t surprise me whatsoever. I watched a documentary on “Bee Brains” and learned they can figure out a maze, and remember the path to their “treat” over and over again much faster than any mouse or rat. Normally after only 1 or at most 2 tries.
When I harvest honey, the empty comb is placed outside for them to clean up the excess honey. Take them, literally, less than a minute to smell it from 50 yards away and bring back hundreds of their sisters to enjoy the free meal.
Fascinating little creatures God created when designing the honey bee :)
Too bad you can’t train them to pull varroa mites off each other. For size comparison, a mite on a bee is like a horseshoe crab on a human. Not hard to notice.
:)
It should be easy to detect a$$hole$!
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