How honey bees may one day help detect signs of cancers (2024)

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How honey bees may one day help detect signs of cancers? ›

Laboratory experiments suggest honeybees can identify lung cancer using their keen sense of smell, researchers report this month in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics. Scientists have long known that animals can detect diseases through scents.

Honeybees can detect the subtle scents of lung cancer in the lab — and even the faint aroma of disease that can waft from a patient's breath.

Michigan State University researchers have discovered that honeybees can detect biomarkers or chemical concentrations associated with lung cancer in human breath. The researchers have also shown that the honeybees can distinguish between different lung cancer cell types using only the 'smell' of the cell cultures.

Tarpy: Yes, bees can recognize and differentiate between human faces, so they can recognize their beekeepers over somebody else. There was this really interesting and splashy study that was done by researchers at Cambridge in 2004.

Researchers at Michigan State University have learned that honeybees can detect chemicals associated with lung cancer in human breath. The insects were able to sniff out human lung cancer biomarkers with a remarkable 82% success rate, according to a study published in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics.

Honeybees have been shown to be useful monitors of the environment in this context for detecting both radionuclides and heavy metals.

Smell. The honey bee's sense of smell is so sensitive that it can detect a scent in flight.

Honey bee (Apis mellifera) males are highly susceptible to infections with the sexually transmitted fungal pathogen Nosema apis. However, they are able to suppress this parasite in the ejacul*te using immune molecules in the seminal fluid.

Results showed a slightly lower incidence of death from cancer in beekeepers professionally exposed to BV during their working life compared to the rest of the population and a significantly lower death rate from lung cancer, while the mortality from other diseases was equal to the rest of the general population.

When a bee stings, she releases an odor called an alarm pheromone to alert others to the danger. This alarm pheromone smells like bananas and attracts other bees to come to the defense of the hive. This pheromone stays on clothing, so if you are stung you should wash your clothing before wearing it again.

Why do bees stare at you? ›

While these large bees can seem aggressive, they are more interested in collecting pollen and nectar than interacting with people. These insects are attracted to fast-moving objects and often fly near a person's head or chest, and will sometimes hover and “stare,” which can be misinterpreted as threatening behavior.

Honey bees often give you a warning. If a honey bee flies into you, bounces off your head, you need to back off, you're likely near a nest. This behavior usually happens before they start stinging. Honey bees, bumble bees and other bees are not at all dangerous when visiting flowers.

Even when the reward was taken away, the bees continued to approach the target face accurately up to 90% of the time, the team reports in the 2 December Journal of Experimental Biology. And in the bees' brains, the memories stuck: The insects could pick out the target face even two days after being trained.

Bees. Even honeybees can detect the signs of certain diseases in samples – including lung cancer, tuberculosis and COVID-19. Honeybees are extremely sensitive to low concentration odours, making them able to detect chemical changes in a similar way to dogs and rats.

“Telling the bees,” as this ceremony is known, calls for a beekeeper to notify his hives of a death in the family. According to tradition, bees that are “put into mourning” help shepherd the dead into the afterlife, as well as reward their stewards with a generous honey harvest.

Among the virtues of bees you may not be aware of is their knack for detecting bombs. Thanks to the fact that they can pick up the scent of explosives with their antennae, researchers in countries such as Croatia have spent years perfecting how to use bees as landmine locators.