Beekeeper Greg Duffy is among the thousands of others at the RDS, where one of the more surprising topics will be the role of bees in detecting landmines

One topic that will keep the bee cognoscenti abuzz at Apimondia this week is the declining populations of honey bees, which have been struck by a number of pests including infection by the Varroa mite.

But what might astonish expert and layperson alike is the role of bees in landmine detection. Scientists in the US are training bees to detect buried landmines. They do this by "teaching" the bees to prefer plants which retain TNT that leaks from landmines.

If successful, this is an aspect of beekeeping which could have an extraordinary humanitarian benefit, being both cheap and extremely effective.

Landmines have been referred to as the world's worst form of pollution. Globally, at least 50 people are killed or maimed by buried mines every day .

The Red Cross estimates that up to 120 million landmines are currently deployed in 70 countries worldwide, with over 30,000 new mines laid every week. In the developing world, thousands of acres of land are lying unused as farmers are terrified to work their fields.

Recent reports have been made of rats being trained in mine-detection. Now bees are being utilised as well.

In a programme being carried out by the US department of energy with the University of Montana, the bees are trained to respond to the odour of TNT. When mines are laid, there is a leakage of chemicals into the surrounding soil or water. This is taken up by the local plants, and the bees procure it from the plants in the form of honey or pollen.

Entomologists have built plastic tunnels in which assorted plants are grown. The soil in which the plants are sown is impregnated with TNT. By carefully examining the honey and pollen taken from the plants, and also from bumble or honey bees placed in the tunnels, it can be determined which plants are the biggest giveaway as to the proximity of landmines. The bees become so used to the TNT that, when released from the tunnels, they will still search for plants which have been grown near soil tainted by TNT.

The seeds of the plants found to absorb most of the TNT are scattered around the possible minefield by air. When the flowering season approaches, beehives are brought to the area, and the bees travel over a radius of more than a mile to collect pollen and nectar from the flowers of the air-sown plants.

Many of the bees are fitted with a mini radio antennae about the size of a grain of sand. These bees can then be tracked by hand-held radar to pinpoint the areas most at risk.