BBC Oneshow: part 1 Introduction
BBC Oneshow with George McGavin: Part 1 - What is a sniffer bee?
BBC Oneshow: part 2 loading the bees
BBC Oneshow with George McGavin. This piece shows how the bees can be loaded by hand. More
BBC Oneshow: part 3 training
BBC Oneshow with George McGavin. Training bees by hand takes one minute per bee. More
BBC Oneshow: part 4 Detector
BBC Oneshow with George McGavin. Sniffer bees on action in Vasor136. More
Automatic loading
Our machine allows us to load the bees into the specially designed Bee Holder. This bee holder is the central piece of our technology. It does more than just to restrain the bees, but inside this tiny holder contains sophiscated electronics than allow us to monitor the response. In addition to that, it has a tiny heating element that allows us to control the temperature so that it can continue to operate at any weather condition.
Automatic training
We are building a prototype that is due to complete in Sept will be able to produced trained bees at a rate of 500 bees in 5 hours. These bees are trained to specific chemical such as TNT, C4, Semtex, Cocaine, Heroine etc. As part of the quality control, once trained the bees will be tested automatically with a known concentration of the chemical to ensure that it is ready for the real operation.
Detector Vasor136
This device was developed with the UK Homeoffice in 2008 to take up to 36 trained sniffer bees. Each sniffer bee works in their beeholder, monitored by our electronics and the signal is processed into graphical image on an LCD display. The result is a simple YES/NO indication of explosives traces. We are working to complete the prototyping of the unit by Dec to be tested in field.