Meet the dog helping to protect bees

Meet Maple, a dog with a very important job - to help protect bees.

Maple is a nine-year-old springer spaniel from Michigan in the US.

She used to work with the local police as a trained sniffer dog, but had to retire after she was injured.

However, Maple has now been trained to use her powerful sniffing skills to help protect honeybee colonies from threats and disease.

Maple's work has been so successful they're thinking of training more pups to help

It all started when Maple's handler Sue Stejskal was put in contact with Professor Meghan Milbrath by a local vet.

Prof Milbrath works at Michigan State Universtiy, and has been searching for a way to help screen and diagnose diseases that affect local honeybees.

So the pair teamed up and trained Maple to use her sniffing powers to search local beehives for any traces of American foulbrood – a disease that is a big threat to honeybee larvae.

However, Maple takes health and safety very seriously, and her and her handler both wear protective suits whilst they are out working.

Maple's yellow outfit comes complete with a protective veil, a yellow suit and four booties to protect her paws from any potential bee-stings.

Maple's work has been so successful that the University says it wants to train up more dogs, and prof Milbrath and Sue Stejskal are teaming up to write a training book to help educate other teams about their work.