Researchers in the UK have made tiny bee backpacks which allow them to track the foraging of wild honeybees. The hope is that a better understanding of the bees behavior will shed light on what is causing the decline in Europe’s wild bee populations.

It was recently reported that one-tenth of Europe’s wild bee species face extinction. The so-called colony collapse disorder (CCD) which has impacted both domesticated and wild bee populations in recent years remains something of a moving target.

For example, recent reports blamed CCD on pesticides known as neonics. However, a new report by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports that neonics are not responsible and that North American domesticated bee populations are stabilizing and even rebounding in some areas. Meanwhile in Europe, where neonics are currently banned, CCD seems to be continuing to affect both domestic and wild bees.

Other suggested causes of CCD include climate change, viruses, invasive species and parasites but no definitive cause has been identified to date.

In order to better understand bee behavior, and possibly the cause of their recent decline, Dr Mark O’Neill has created small tracking devices which consist of a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip and a very small antenna which can be placed on the bees themselves to track their movement.

The chips are then monitored using a special reader attached to a Raspberry Pi.

O’Neill, technical director with Newcastle, England based Tumbling Dice, is currently trying to patent the home-made bee trackers.

“The first stage was to make very raw pre-production tags using components I could easily buy. I want to make optimised aerial components which would be a lot smaller. I’ve made about 50 so far. I’ve soldered them all on my desk – it feels like surgery,” he told the BBC.

The trackers measuring just 0.3 inches high and 1.9 inches wide are then superglued to bees, which are first chilled to slow them. The trackers then remain with the bees for the rest of their three month life-span.

“These tags are a big step forward in radio technology and no one has a decent medium to long range tag yet that is suitable for flying on small insects. This new technology will open up possibilities for scientists to track bees in the landscape. This piece of the puzzle, of bee behaviour, is absolutely vital if we are to understand better why our bees are struggling and how we can reverse their decline,” said Dr Sarah Barlow, a restoration ecologist from Kew Gardens.

It is hoped that by tracking bees, moving freely around their environment that new light will be shed on their behavior and possibly some further clues to diseases affecting the animals will be uncovered.

Unfortunately, a similar experiment conducted in Tasmania early in 2014 does not appear, yet, to have provided any vital information that might explain CCD.