Out and about yesterday working with Rob P. on his film about surveillance, we interviewed Amber Marks who as well as being a journalist and trained barrister is also the daughter of Mr Nice. She has written a book
She told us about a company in Harpenden, Herts. called Inscentinel which has developed a sniffer box in which trained bees can detect the presence of explosives.
This brought to mind a graduation project from the RCA last summer. MA student Susana Soares developed a beautiful looking device in which trained bees could detect pheromones, toxins and even diseases in the breath of users.
I did a bit of googling and found some video of the Inscentinel HQ with an alarmingly young looking ‘scientist’ bribing bees with cotton buds covered in sugar water, wrapping them up like sausage rolls and teaching them to sniff out bombs. Their site says the bees are returned unharmed to the hive once their tour of duty is complete but i wouldn’t fancy a spell in one of those holders. The researcher is lucky the bees are dealing with the war on terror in such good natured fashion, i’m sure his arms would be covered in stings if he was trying to train wasps.
Bees take 15 minutes to train apparently. The first lesson for our bees is going to be how to avoid bouquets, tiered cakes or bridal veils. They’ll be sharing Royal Festival Hall roofspace with couples tying the knot as soon as the weather improves and we don’t want any problems, alright? (AH)