Bees with Backpacks

[Music plays and the Maths inside, UTS, AAMT and CSIRO logos and text appears: Investigating the maths inside, Bees with Backpacks]

 

[Images move through to show bees extracting nectar from different flowers, the CSIRO office door closing, a rear view of Paulo walking down the office corridor and entering his office]

 

[Images move through to show an aerial view of a farm, stars in a dark sky, Paulo walking into lab, and then a rear view of Paulo looking into a microscope]

 

Paulo De Souza: When I was a child in Brazil what I really enjoyed was to explore nature, to walking about, walking at night, seeing the stars, seeing insects and how everything was so interconnected, in a very special way. I think I was born a scientist.

 

[Images move through to show a bee under the microscope and then the camera pans out to show Paulo looking in microscope in the lab]

 

I was so fascinated about the world.

 

[Camera zooms to show Paulo calculating a measurement]

 

So, for me looking at different tools and looking at different ways of seeing the world was fantastic.

 

[Image changes to show just Paulo’s face smiling at the camera and text appears: Paulo De Souza, Science Leader, CSIRO]

 

Hi, I’m Paulo De Souza. I’m a Science Leader at CSIRO.

 

[Music plays and the background image shows various shades of orange and yellow hexagons and mathematic symbols flashing on the screen and text appears: #MATHEMATICS]

 

[Images move through to show Paulo talking to the camera, Paulo’s palm holding microchips, Paulo using tweezers to pick up the microchips, and Paulo using the tweezers to attach a microchip to a bee]

 

The work we’re doing today is about attaching small backpacks, small microchips to bees, just like you do with microchipping in dogs and cats, we do that with bees.

 

[Image changes to show the bee with a microchip on its head and then the image shows the bee moving along a sample lid and then the camera zooms in on the microchip]

 

We are trying to learn more about the bees and how they behave, how frequently they leave the hive, for how long they stay out there, and how they respond to changes in the environment.

 

[Images move through to show a bee with microchip on its head, bees swarming in a hive, a farmer holding down a branch of a fruit tree, crab apple fruit on the branch and Paulo talking to the camera]

 

Over the last 50 years the bees are disappearing from the world. Without bees we won’t have most of the fruits we need. We must understand what’s going on before it becomes too late.

 

[Images move through to show an animation of two bees moving across hive, tweezers being used to attach a microchip to the bee and then bees entering and exiting a hive passing an electrical antenna]

 

The way we collect the data is very interesting. You have the bee with a little backpack, and in that backpack, you have an antenna that communicates to another antenna nearby.

 

[Image shows an animation of a bee flying over flowers and then the animation image changes to show bees entering and exiting a hive and then the image changes show Paulo talking to the camera]

 

So, every time the bee leaves the hive, this microchip talks to this antenna and tells Mary is leaving the hive. If Mary stay out there flying for about an hour when she comes back to this antenna and microchip talk again.

 

[Camera zooms in on Paulo talking to the camera]

 

Each car has a licensed plate. So, each bee has a license plate or has a microchip with a unique number.

 

[Images move through to show a man in beekeeper suit approaching a computer box, the man extracting information from the box and closing it, and then Paulo talking to the camera]

 

As the bee leaves the hive an antenna reads that information and communicates with a small computer that is sitting next to the hive. All the information is stored in the memory of this computer and then that information is transmitted either by Wi-Fi or via Blue Tooth using your Smartphone.

 

[Image changes to show Paulo writing out an equation]

 

There are a number of things that I learned at school that helps me today with my work.

 

[Image changes to show a rear view of Paulo examining charts on a desktop computer and then the image changes to show a screen shot view of a swarm sensing model, and then Paulo talking to the camera]

 

I learned more about fractions and ratios and optimisation, modelling, statistics. All this, and equations, all these tools in mathematics are so useful for me today. I won’t be able to do this research without that knowledge that I learnt.

 

[Image changes to show front view of Paulo walking down a corridor, entering a room, sitting at a work station and then the image changes to a show side view of Paulo explaining charts on his computer]

 

For example, we look at the activity of the bees. It’s increasing by 10 am, getting to a peak by 1 pm and then the activity of the bees decline, and that looks exactly like a bell shape cone.

 

[Images move through to show Paulo writing out an equation, a swarm sensing model moving to show swarming pattern and Paulo writing out an equation]

 

And we modelled that not just with all the data, but with a single equation we can explain how the bees will behave. We can predict how they will behave.

 

[Image changes to show a side view of Paulo talking to the camera]

 

With Calculus, I am able to calculate how many bees will be leaving their hives at this time of the day depending on the weather conditions.

 

[Image changes to show a person removing the top layer of honey comb from the hive and then the camera zooms to show an upward facing view of the bees working in their hive]

 

With fractions and ratios, I am able to calculate what’s the amount of the pollen that the bee will be able to carry and how much this microchip would influence the bees.

 

[Image changes to show a person removing a frame from bee hive and then the camera zooms in to show the bees swarming on the frame]  

 

We don’t need to attach sensors to all of the bees.

 

[Image changes to show tweezers attaching a microchip to a bee’s head]

 

So, we attach sensors to just some of the bees and by statistics we can then predict how all the bees will behave, how the whole population will behave.

 

[Images move through to show Paulo talking to the camera, a farmer walking into his shed and driving a tractor out, the tractor lowering its pallet forks with a package on it and the farmer pruning a tree]

 

Understanding the principles of optimisation was very important for us to understand then if a farmer would be over pollenating or under pollenating a given hive and how many hives you need to have on a farm.

 

[Image changes to show a crab apple fruit on a tree and then the image changes to show Paulo talking to the camera]

 

To calculate that you need to know how bees will behave and you need to know mathematics. And that is crucial for us to understand, how important maths are for farmers, are for beekeepers, are for scientists.

 

[Images move through to show a person stacking beehive frames, bees flying in and out of a hive and then two people in bee suits smoking the bees]

 

 Bees are very predictable. We can, with this technology follow the bee’s movements.

 

[Images move through to show animation images of a bee flying over flowers, black storm clouds behind the flowers, bees moving over a honeycomb, and three hives with a world map drawn in sky]

 

Depending on the weather conditions, if it’s a hot day, if it’s not raining, or if it’s not too windy, the bees will be working more, and they will be working for longer hours than they would work if it’s a little bit too cold.

 

[Images move through of a person in a hive suit attaching a microchip to a bee, bees moving on a hive frame and bees flying into the hive]

 

Bee behaviour will also be influenced by colleagues. What one bee is doing is also influencing the other ones. So, they work as a colony. They work together. They go together to have a lunch break and they come back together to the class.

 

[Image changes to show a side view of Paulo talking to the camera]

 

The bees like to do pyjama parties. So, they visit each other hives from day to day. So, they go to another hive, stay there for a couple of days, come back with their little friends and they stay in the hive and they keep doing that.

 

[Image changes to show a facing view of Paulo talking to the camera]

 

But scale and ratio is unable to determine how many bees will be going to a pyjama party or staying in their hive.

 

[Images move through to show a bee with a microchip on its head, a five-cent piece next to a microchip, and a microchip being held in the end of tweezers]

 

The technology that we have today is 2.5 x 2.5 millimetres in size.

 

[Image changes to show a side view of Paulo talking to camera and then the image changes to show a row of bee hives on a farm]

 

What we want to have is something that will be much smaller than that, about the size of a grain of sand that will enable us to not only study bees but also to study mosquitoes transmitting diseases, to study many other insects and eventually look for new applications of that.

 

[Images move through to show colleagues in beekeeper suits in conversation, a beekeeper smoking a hive and then Paulo talking to the camera]

 

We might be able to swallow some of those sensors and look at how healthy your body is, or you might be able to monitor the wings of an aircraft in flight and learn more about the structure of the aeroplane as it’s flying.

 

[Images move through to show a man putting on a beekeeper suit, bees moving on hive frame, picking up a bee in container off the frame]

 

The future is, it’s fantastic if you look at the way we’re developing the technology.

 

[Image changes to show bees moving on a hive frame and then the image changes to show a male holding up a hive frame to show other colleagues]

 

Costs of production could decrease so much that will enable us to produce much more for the same amount of money and I think the future is to be bearded by the students of today.

 

[Image changes to show Paulo talking to the camera and then the image changes to show a beekeeper putting a hive frame back into a hive]

 

The students of today are the ones that will bring this to a reality.

 

[Image changes to show a beekeeper showing other colleagues a hive frame and then the image changes to show bees swarming in the hive]

 

Sometimes at school we learn things that we don’t really see how I can apply that and how that will be useful. At the end of the day it will be useful to you in so many ways.

 

[Image changes to show a close-up view of Paulo talking to the camera

 

In just in this research we use mathematics in everything we are doing. The world out there, is complex, and at the same way it reveals a structure and mathematics is the language that enable us to understand the world.

 

[Camera zooms out on Paulo talking to the camera]

 

You may want to be a farmer, you may want to be a doctor, you may want to do some programming, you may want to do something else. Whatever you do mathematics is going be a such a useful tool to make a difference.

 

[Music plays and the Maths Inside logo and text appears: Investigating the maths inside, Maths Inside is a project led by University of Technology Sydney, and funded by the Commonwealth Department of Education and Training under the Australian Maths and Sciences Partnership Program, The aim of Maths Inside is to increase engagement of secondary school students in mathematics, by using rich tasks that show the ways it is used in real world applications, To find out more about this project and other AMSPP resources, please go to http://dimensions.aamt.edu.au, Maths Inside 2016 except where otherwise indicated, the Maths Inside materials may be used, reproduced, communicated and adapted free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes provided all acknowledgements associated with the material are retained, Maths Inside is a UTS project in collaboration with CSIRO and AAMT]