A new line of research involves attaching tiny QR codes to individual honeybees, which interact with a sensor at the entrance to the hive. Each bee has a unique code, so that its behavior can be analyzed in fine detail. The system is akin to employees wearing badges into office buildings that record what time they arrive and leave. The tags are tiny and do not interfere with the bees' everyday activities. This invasion of the bees' privacy has already yielded results, such as the fact that beed live about twice as long as previously thought- two months as opposed to one month. The main goal is to determine how far bees travel to forage for nectar.
You might be impressed with this use of modern technology, or you may be repelled by the idea of bees being treated like this. But my mind went straight to the plight of the poor graduate students who were tasked with attaching 32,000 QR tags to individual bees. You have to wonder how many stings they had to deal with. Read more about the research and what we've learned about bees from it at Gizmodo.
(Image credit: Andrea Fabiani Ph)
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