Dog Beekeeping Suit

Dogs are employed as sniffers for all sorts of jobs. One specialty is a dog trained to detect disease in honeybees, particularly a nasty-sounding ailment called American foulbrood. Australian beekeeper Josh Kennett trained his Labrador Bazz to detect the disease, but he ran into a problem -bees tend to chase dogs off.

The beekeeper, from Tintinara in South Australia's south-east, says that while there are dogs doing similar work in the United States, the cold temperatures there negate the need for protection.

"Their winters are far colder than ours, with snow over the top of beehives. We don't have that situation here in South Australia.

"So I've tried to develop a suit the dog can wear and hopefully avoid being stung."

Mr Kennett says after a long process of trial and error, he's finally got a working prototype.  

The next step is to get Bazz used to working in the suit. Link  -via Arbroath

(Image credit: Josh Kennett)