Today I was watching QI and I discovered that bees are actually better at identifying smells than dogs. Trials have been conducted in which it has been discovered that bees can identify a smell within approximately ten minutes, as opposed to the three weeks that it takes to train a dog to identify a certain scent. I found this to be amazing and it conjured up all type of thoughts, such as bees replacing hounds on a fox hunt. It would probably lose much of the drama of the hunt without all the barking, because the barking would be replaced with buzzing, which can get quite annoying. Especially since you would need to use an entire swarm in order to be able to see where the bees were heading. However on the plus side, the bees would be able to follow the fox into places quite easily and it would be very difficult for the fox to escape a swarm of bees.
Now the hunt theory might be ridiculous but what is currently being considered, in light of this research, is to use bees to replace dogs at airports for sniffing out drugs or explosive materials. My concern with this plan is that we will be diverting the bees from their true purpose. If they are not out pollinating plants and flowers, are our plants going to slowly wither and die. Also, will there be a shortage in global honey stocks, because that could be a potential tragedy for honey lovers worldwide. I mean what would Yogi Bear do?!? Overall I think that we should just leave bees to making honey and dogs to their sniffing, because I for one don't want to have to walk through a swarm of bees to reach my luggage!
No comments:
Post a Comment