Biochemistry research fellow Dr Andrew Cridge said the plan is to strategically site hives in areas where there are suspected to be unwanted plants.
Because the cost of DNA diagnostic testing has fallen so much, it makes it viable to analyse bee-collected pollen to see if unwanted plants are near the hives.
The key is to site the hives to get the best and most accurate coverage of a suspected infected area then use DNA analysis of pollen to determine if the pest plants are in the vicinity.
With 50,000 bees a hive and each bee able to forage a 3.5km area the bees can significantly narrow down a search area.
The 2016 velvet leaf incursion affected more than 250 farms in 11 regions and cost more than $1 million to contain so bees could have significantly reduced the search areas.
Each year NZ spends $248 million eradicating and managing unwanted organisms.
That cost can be reduced by using bees to narrow down the area where the unwanted weeds are and potentially allow eradication, he said.
“The success of eradication is exponentially improved by early detection of new invaders and, in turn, enhanced by proficient monitoring.
“However, monitoring remains poor for weed species with reliance on fortuitous observation or border interceptions,” he said.
The process and technology will be tried in urban and rural areas but the science could have other applications, such as monitoring exotic plant diseases and the determining the geographic origin of high-risk insect pests detected by border security.
