Sniffing bee

Toby's sniffing capabilities are invaluable - Image from Bumblebee Conservation Trust

Toby is an ordinary looking springer spaniel but what he does is extremely special. He is a trained sniffer dog but not in the conventional sense where he has to go rushing behind criminal scents. He has to sniff something more mundane - bumblebees. Toby is the latest tool in locating the disappearing presence of bumblebees in Britain. He is not the only one of his kind, since Quinn the springer spaniel was there before him. Toby has been trained in the army and is in the employ of Stirling University where researchers have received a grant of $1,96,678 (£112,000) to study bumblebee decline. Bumblebee nests are smaller than a hive and are often located underground. This is where Toby's skills come in. Toby who had been rescued from an animal pound in the Midlands now stays on a farm with his handler, PhD student Steph O' Connor.

Read more about Quinn

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust