Asked to describe bees, most people wouldn't have "smart" on the tip of their tongues. That word would come behind "annoying," "pest" and others that can't be printed in a family newspaper.

But a Franklin & Marshall College student has used the insects' intelligence to teach them behavior that just might help stem the widespread decline in bee populations.

F&M senior Veronica Thomas started a honeybee apiary last spring to conduct research into this disturbing trend, which could affect the world's food supply because bees are a major pollinator of crops.

By training her bees to associate a particular smell with a food reward, Thomas was able to get them to avoid plants with pesticides — considered one cause of colony collapse.

After Thomas graduates this month, F&M student Eric Mellis will continue her research.

A campus visit by Dennis vanEnglesdorp, one of the country's leading bee experts, inspired Thomas.

"I hadn't really thought about bees" until vanEnglesdorp came to F&M as part of the college's Environmental Speaker Series, said Thomas, a biological foundations of (animal) behavior major from Union County, N.J.

Working with Dr. Sarah Dawson, director of F&M's Wohlsen Center for the Sustainable Environment, she obtained a college grant to get the project off the ground.

Bees are often used in experiments, Dawson said, so Thomas' thought was, "Why can't we train them to do something useful?"

Experiment bears fruit
Thomas, 21, toured an apiary and attended meetings of the Lancaster County Honey Producers, learning vital information, including where to purchase hives.

She began in April 2010 with two "minihives" in which the bees had already been introduced to the queen.

After setting up and maintaining the apiary on the college's Baker Campus near the baseball field, Thomas began her research last fall.

During training, she got the bees to associate a mint-lemongrass scent with sugar water (a highly valued food reward) and a grapefruit oil scent with plain water (a less-valued food reward).

She then sprayed eight chrysanthemums with the mint-lemongrass scent; eight with the grapefruit oil scent; and eight more with the grapefruit oil scent and a synthetic herbicide.

Thomas found the honeybees visited the first group of flowers much more often.

"They're very smart," she said.

Thomas' research is something that could potentially have widespread application, Dawson said.

In March, the United Nations released a report expressing alarm at the huge decline in bee colonies.

"The way humanity manages or mismanages its nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our collective future in the 21st century," Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N.'s environmental agency, said at the time.

"The fact is that of the 100 crop species that provide 90 percent of the world's food, over 70 are pollinated by bees."

The report said that pollinators, including bees, are estimated to contribute 9.5 percent — or $212 billion —of the total annual value of food production worldwide.

The U.N. placed the blame for the collapse on more than a dozen factors, including pesticides, air pollution and mites.

Bee colonies in recent years have decreased 30 percent in the U.S., 10-30 percent in Europe and up to 85 percent in the Middle East, according to the U.N.

More research needed
Thomas returned to the apiary this spring — though she had to wait until the weather improved. "Rain is a problem," she said. And honeybees are more active when the temperature reaches at least 60, she added.

During winter, bees cluster around the queen as she lays her eggs, she said. One of her two queens died, so she's replacing that hive.

Thomas said more research is required to test the theory that bees can be trained. But if that turns out to be the case, she said, then it's possible to "control where they forage."

The foragers are the bees who collect nectar "and pollinate in the process," Thomas said.

The next research step at Baker Campus apiary, Dawson said, is to teach the bees to stay away from genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, which local beekeepers believe are a problem.

Then the plan is to see if the trained bees will behave the same way farther from the hives, she said.

'Flying puppy dogs'
The bees exposed to the training exercise were marked with pink and green nontoxic nail polish on their lower abdomens to distinguish them from the others.

One time, when Thomas arrived at Baker Campus, she noticed almost a dozen honeybees on her car windshield.

She could tell the insects were hers because of the nail polish. "They knew sugar water was coming," so they went right to her vehicle, Thomas said.

The research has been just as entertaining as it has been rewarding, Dawson said.

She said Thomas calls the bees her "flying puppy dogs" because they follow her around so much.

One morning last week, Thomas donned her white protective jacket, head gear and yellow gloves before opening the hive. Underneath she wore a brown T-shirt with a peace sign that said, "Give Bees a Chance."

Most of the insects were sluggish, because of the cool weather, but some started to fly around and land on her clothing. "They'll just sit on you," said Thomas, who talks to the bees.

"They're very gentle."

On average, a black-and-yellow honeybee is 12-16 mm long and weighs one-tenth of a gram, Thomas said.

Though she takes precautions, she has been stung a few times.

Dawson said the stings happened early on, "when we weren't sure what we were doing." But now the bees are so laid-back "we were picking them up the other day," she said.

Shaded by trees, the apiary is enclosed by a metal fence. A posted sign reads, "Caution, No Trespassing. Honeybee Research."

Residents in the School Lane Hills neighborhood have taken an interest, Thomas said. "They like to walk by and see what's happening."

After graduation, Thomas will work in the education department at the Bronx Zoo, where her father, Patrick, is general curator.

Within two years, she'll probably go for her master's degree in a field such as wildlife conservation, she said.

Last summer, she interned in Namibia with the Cheetah Conservation Fund.

Whatever career Thomas pursues, her faculty adviser, Dawson, is convinced she'll be successful.

"Ronnie is the best," she said. "She's driven, she's insightful.

"I couldn't ask for a better student."

Paula Wolf is a staff writer for the Sunday News. She can be reached by email at pwolf@lnpnews.com.