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Micro-sensors stuck to honey bees

Micro-sensors stuck to honey bees to help solve mass deaths

Australian scientists revealed on Tuesday they are using micro-sensors attached to honey bees as part of a global push to understand the key factors driving a worldwide population decline of the pollinators.

There has been a sharp plunge in the population of honey bees, which pollinate about 70 percent of global crops, or one-third of food that humans eat including fruits and vegetables, raising fears over food security

 

Researchers have said the falling hive numbers were caused by threats such as the sudden death of millions of adult insects in beehives — known as “colony collapse disorder” — a blood-sucking mite called Varroa, pesticides and climate change.

“The micro-sensors that we are using help us to ask different questions that we couldn’t ask before because we’ve never really been able to quantify the behaviour of bees both out in the environment and in their hives,” Gary Fitt from Australia’s national science agency CSIRO told AFP.