A Dog’s Nose Knows!
Dogs like Maple the English springer spaniel are using their sensitive noses to track diseases that can destroy beehives.
Courtesy of © Greg L. Kohuth/Michigan State University
Maple, an English springer spaniel, poses in her beekeeper suit.
When Sue Stejskal puts her dog Maple in a bright white suit, she’s not playing dress up. She’s preparing Maple for an important task. Maple, a 9-year-old English springer spaniel, uses her amazing sense of smell to identify disease in beehives.
Bees play an important role in maintaining our food supply. They’re pollinators, meaning they help plants, including farmers’ crops, to reproduce. But the bee population has been falling in recent years, due partly to the spread of deadly diseases that people sometimes cannot detect until it’s too late. That’s where dogs like Maple come in. Research shows that dogs’ noses are so sensitive that they can sniff out certain diseases.
Researchers at Michigan State University (MSU) are training dogs to use their noses to find American foulbrood, a bacterial disease that can destroy the hives of honeybees by killing bee larvae (young bees).
Courtesy of © Greg L. Kohuth/Michigan State University
Maple and her owner, Sue Stejskal, during a training session. Maple is learning to sniff out disease in beehives.
Maple is up to the task. Having been a police dog for many years, she’s easily trained and eager to please.
“She is a very energetic springer spaniel who really likes to work and have a purpose, and so this was a wonderful opportunity for her to continue working,” Stejskal, Maple’s owner, told Bridge Michigan.
Maple’s suit is similar to the protective gear that beekeepers wear. It includes a head veil and four booties for her paws—in case she steps on a bee. Once she’s suited up, the brown and white dog runs between hives. If she smells the bacteria that cause disease, she stops and looks at her trainer.
MSU researchers are using their experience training Maple to write instructions on how to train other dogs to detect hive diseases. Then beekeepers and dog trainers everywhere could put dogs to work, saving bees and our food supply.
