Security

At Inscentinel we have trained our honeybees to a wide variety of explosive compounds and mixtures including Semtex, C4, PE4, TNT, DMNB and Gunpowder. Recently we have also experienced success in training bees to detect hydrogen peroxide which is one of the compounds known to be used in home-made explosives.

Car Bomb Detection Demonstration - In 2004 Inscentinel was commissioned to test the effectiveness of honeybees in detecting car bombs. The study was funded by the US military and carried out at a military installation in Arizona using local honeybees trained onsite, and showed that our technology can be used effectively to detect car bombs from a vehicle line-up. During this study it was also established that our trained honeybees could detect low parts per trillion concentrations of TNT, a limit of detection lower than commercial ion scanners and at least as good as sniffer dogs.

More recently Inscentinel was commissioned by the UK Home Office OSCT (Office for Security and Counter terrorism) to supply a detector (the VASOR136) to be independently tested. The trial design was adapted from an aviation check-point protocol established for the evaluation of trace detection equipment. The VASOR136 was tested against a Sabre4000 hand held vapour detector produced by Smiths Detection. Control measurements were conducted using GC-MS analysis of the explosive samples to establish the concentration detected. During the trial honeybees (Apis mellifera) that were used in the VASOR136 were trained to detect a single component of each explosive. The VASOR136 successfully detected two explosive materials and GC-MS analysis revealed that the concentrations in the head space generated by the explosive samples were in the range of ~50ppb (volume in air).

This evaluation of the Inscentinel insect olfaction technology has shown that the technique is a very sensitive tool that will be of great value in real life scenarios. The bees are trained to a single component of the explosive material which means they can detect it even if the composition varies (which is always the case with IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices)) and that they can detected tagged materials.

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