| Good morning, everyone. |
| In today's seminar, Grant Freeman, a biologist who specialises in identifying insects, |
| and who works for the Australian Quarantine Service, |
| has come to talk to us about his current research work. |
| Right, well, over to you, Grant. |
| Good morning, everyone. |
| I'm sure that you know that the quarantine service regulates all food brought into Australia. |
| Well, obviously they want to protect Australia from diseases that might come in with imported goods, |
| but they also want to prevent insect pests from being introduced into the country, |
| and that's where I have a part to play. |
| Anyway, my current research involves trying to find a particular type of bee: |
| the Asian Honey Bee |
| and finding out whether there are any of them around in various states of Australia. |
| We discovered a few of them in Queensland once and eradicated them. |
| Now, we're pretty keen to make sure that there aren't any more getting in, |
| particularly to New South Wales and other states. |
| What's wrong with Asian Honey Bees? |
| Are they so different from Australian bees? |
| Well, in fact, they look almost the same, |
| but they are infested with mites - |
| microscopic creatures which live on them, |
| and which can seriously damage our own home-grown bees, or could even wipe them out. |
| Well, what would happen if Australian bees died out? |
| Well, the honey from Australian bees is of excellent quality, |
| much better than the stuff the Asian bees produce. |
| In fact, Australia exports native Queen bees to a large number of countries because of this. |
| When the European Honey Bee was first discovered out in the bush, |
| we found they made really unpleasant honey |
| and they were also too big to pollinate many of our native flowers here in Australia. |
| That must have had a devastating effect on the natural flora. |
| Did you lose any species? |
| No, we managed to get them under control before that happened |
| but if Asian bees got in there could be other consequences. |
| We could lose a lot of money because you might not be aware, |
| but it's estimated that native bees' pollination of flower and vegetable crops is worth 1.2 billion dollars a year. |
| So in a way they're the farmer's friend. |
| Oh, and another thing is, if you're stung by an Asian Honey Bee, |
| it can produce an allergic reaction in some people; |
| so they're much more dangerous than native bees. |
| How will you know if Asian bees have entered Australia? |
| We're looking at the diet of the bird called the Rainbow Bee Eater. |
| The Bee Eater doesn't care what it eats, as long as they're insects. |
| But the interesting thing about this bird is that we are able to analyse exactly what it eats |
| and that's really helpful if we're looking for introduced insects. |
| How come? |
| Because insects have their skeletons outside their bodies, |
| so the Bee Eaters digest the meat from the inside. |
| Then they bring up all the indigestible bits of skeleton |
| and, of course, the wings in a pellet - |
| a small ball of waste material which they cough up. |
| That sounds a bit unpleasant. |
| So, how do you go about it? |
| In the field, we track down the Bee Eaters and find their favourite feeding spots, |
| you know, the places where the birds usually feed. |
| It's here that we can find the pellets. |
| We collect them up and take them back to the laboratory to examine the contents. |
| How do you do that? |
| The pellets are really hard, especially if they have been out in the sun for a few days |
| so, first of all, we treat them by adding water to moisten them and make them softer. |
| Then we pull them apart under the microscope. |
| Everything's all scrunched up but we're looking for wings so we just pull them all out and straighten them. |
| Then we identify them to see if we can find any Asian bee wings. |
| And how many have you found? |
| So far our research shows that Asian bees have not entered Australia in any number - |
| it's a good result and much more reliable than trying to find live ones as evidence of introduced insects. |
| Well, that's fascinating! |
| Thank you, Grant, for those insights. |
| I hope that you might inspire some of our students here to conduct some similar experiments. |