Biomonitoring for wide area surveying in landmine detection using honeybees and optical sensing

Humanitarian demining is a worldwide effort and the range of climates environments prevent any one detection method being suitable for all sites, so more tools are required safe efficient explosives sensing. Landmines emit chemical flux over time, honeybees can collect trace residues (as particles or as vapour) on their body hairs. This capability was exploited using passive allowing to freely forage in mined area, where present environment stuck honeybee body, which were subsequently transferred onto an adsorbent material analysis by fluorescent polymer sensor. Potential false positive sources investigated, namely common bee pheromones, anti-varroa pesticide Amitraz, around clean apiary, no significant response found from The site gave substantial optical sensor films, with quenching efficiencies up 38%. A model adapted estimate mass returned colony, may be useful estimating number mines given area.