A technique developed to catch serial killers could help in bee conservation, if Nigel Raine has anything to do with it.

Raine, a researcher at Queen Mary, University of London’s School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, is applying a technique called geographic profiling to the buzzing, stinging insects.

Geographic profiling aims to help police find the area that a serial criminal might call home, by analysing the locations in which linked crimes occur and exploiting the fact most serial crimes happen close to the perp’s home, but not too close (as readers of Silence of the Lambs will remember). This behaviour is also seen in bees – they don’t forage in the area immediately around their hive to reduce the risk that the nest will be found by predators and parasites.

So bees are perfect for testing the GP technique which will help criminologists perfect it – “something which is impossible to do with criminals, for obvious reasons”, says Raine – and the technique can also help find bee-homes (press release).

In the Journal of the Royal Society Interface Raine and colleagues report that GP can help pinpoint the location of a hive based on foraging data from real bees and virtual bees in simulations. Biologists will also use the results for improving conservation of bees, says Raine, an issue that has become increasing important with Colony Collapse Disorder.

“In future, GP could be applied to help locate bee nests, or areas of potential nesting habitat in fragmented landscapes, from the spatial distribution of observed foraging sites alone (as opposed to other interesting but more complex approaches),” the paper suggests. “Locating nest sites of wild bees frequently proves extremely difficult, so any technique which could improve search success would be very valuable, particularly for the increasing number of rare or endangered bumble-bee species.”

The technique could also be applied to animals that, like some serial killers, frequently move their bases.

“Given the success of the GP method applied to serial criminals who have shifted their anchor points, e.g. the Yorkshire Ripper, who moved house during the investigation, this approach may potentially be useful for investigating animals which have multiple anchor points: for example, chimpanzee and gorilla groups that regularly shift their home base to follow seasonal food availability in tropical forests,” suggest the authors.

News coverage

Bees help devise way to catch serial killers – Daily Telegraph

Bees join hunt for serial killers – BBC

Image: Elizabeth A. Sellers / NBII