DAVIS — How are honey bees being trained to detect explosives and narcotics?

Scientist Robert Wingo of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, will speak on "Explosives and Narcotics Detection by Monitoring of the Proboscis Extension Reflex in Apis mellifera (Honey Bee)" today (Oct. 21) in 357 Hutchison Hall, UC Davis.

The one-hour event, set from 4 to 5 p.m., is sponsored by the UC Davis Department of Plant Pathology.

Wingo is with the chemical diagnosis and engineering of the chemistry division.

His lecture will be Webcast live as part of the pilot UC Seminar Network program, said UC Davis entomologist James R. Carey, former chair of the UC Systemwide Academic Senate University Committee on Research Policy, which is spearheading the project on three UC campuses: UC Davis, UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz. Long-term plans include expanding to the seven other campuses.

Viewers can link to Wingo's lecture at https://admin.na4.acrobat.com/_a841422360/ucsn1/.

In a news release issued Nov. 27, 2006, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) news writer Todd Hanson wrote that LANL scientists “have developed a method for training the common honey bee to detect the explosives used in bombs. Based on knowledge of bee biology, the new techniques could become a leading tool in the fight against the use of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, which present a critical vulnerability for American military troops abroad and is an emerging danger for civilians worldwide.”

“By studying bee behavior and testing and improving on technologies already on the market,” Hanson wrote, “Los Alamos scientists developed methods to harness the honey bee's exceptional olfactory sense where the bees' natural reaction to nectar, a proboscis extension reflex (sticking out their tongue), could be used to record an unmistakable response to a scent. Using Pavlovian training techniques common to bee research, they trained bees to give a positive detection response, via the proboscis extension reflex, when they were exposed to vapors from TNT, C4, TATP explosives and propellants.”

The bee’s phenomenal sense of smell rivals that of dogs, according to Tim Haarmann, principal investigator for the Stealthy Insect Sensor Project.

Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, the Babcock & Wilcox Co. and the Washington Division of URS for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.

The contact person for the seminar is Elizabeth Jeffery of Plant Pathology, who can be reached at  (530) 754-9506 or emjeffery@ucdavis.edu.