Since the beginning of the Balkan wars in 1991, about 2,500 people in Croatia have died from land mine explosions. During the four-year war, 90,000 land mines were placed across the entire country, mostly at random and without any plan or existing maps. About 466 square miles are still suspected of being filled with mines from the wars. How does a country find, and dispose of, that many mines when they don\’t even know where they are? The answer might surprise you—Honeybees.
Zagreb University in Croatia is pioneering a multimillion-dollar program they are calling \”Tiramisu.\” The premise is simple: Honeybees have a perfect sense of smell that can quickly detect the scent of the explosives. They are being trained to identify their food with the scent of TNT. Food sources for the bees-in-training are laced with traces of TNT. The bees learn to seek out food only with that specific smell. Release the bomb-sniffing bees in the area of a suspected minefield, and the bees go to the mines.
There are several animals with the ability to smell and identify TNT. Dogs have been used for years. But dogs weigh enough to detonate the mines. Honeybees do not. They are the perfect bomb-proof sniffers.
Dave Bolin, Gadsden, Alabama; source: Dustin Stojanovic and Darko Bandic, \”Honeybees trained in Croatia to find land mines,\” Associated Press (5-19-13)
Accessed 26/11/13 @3:39pm-http://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/2013/july/1070113.html