LANSING – Meet former K-9 Maple. She made a big career switch earlier this year—from a human remains detection dog to a beekeeper at Michigan State University’s Pollinator Performance Center.
The friendly brown-and-white dog, with a long tongue that hangs out of her mouth, dons her own beekeeping suit and uses her powerful nose to sniff out danger.
“She is a very energetic springer spaniel who really likes to work and have a purpose and so this was a wonderful opportunity for her to continue working,” said Sue Stejskal, Maple’s owner and K-9 handler and trainer.
Maple uses her sense of smell to detect American foulbrood, a bacteria that left undisturbed, means certain death for an entire honeybee colony, Stejskal said.
If she detects the bacteria, she sits.
“That was her way of notifying me that she found the odor she was looking for,” Stejskal said.
Dogs can be trained to detect many things, like explosives, narcotics, people, leaking pipe lines and even endangered species, she said.
“People probably don’t realize how many different types of detection dogs are used,” Stejskal said.
Honey is an economic sweetener in the state. Michigan bees produced about 5 million pounds last year, a 30% hike from 2023. It ranks eighth nationally.
MSU researcher Meghan Milbrath says their team is developing an instructive manual for professionals to train dogs to detect harmful honeybee diseases – which saves both bees and time.
“When you’ve got tens of thousands of colonies to go through, we do have to look at ways that you could process a lot of samples quickly,” Milbrath said. “And so, a dog really can move through a yard and identify ones that need to be inspected.”
Protecting honeybees is important because they are responsible for pollinating the many types of fruits and vegetables grown in Michigan, she said.
Maple’s work is part of a larger education and outreach project that, in addition to dog training, aims to get beekeepers and MSU veterinary students familiar with honeybee diseases, Milbrath said.
This story was reported as part of a partnership of Capital News Service, WKAR and Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism.
