Tens of thousands of honey bees around the world could soon be carrying tiny electronic sensors on their backs as part of a "swarm sensing" program championed by the CSIRO to obtain a bee's-eye perspective on the cause of the alarming rise in the insects' mortality rate.

CSIRO physicist Professor Paulo de Souza​, from the research body's office of the chief executive science leader, said if the trend was not halted, it would affect the pollination of plants and crops and result in an agricultural calamity. About 30 per cent of the food we eat, including strawberries, apples, pears almonds, cherries and most citrus fruit crops, largely rely on bee pollination.

"The worst case scenario would be in developing countries," said Professor de Souza. "You would see starvation, people fleeing from borders - very similar to the situation you saw in the droughts of the '80s [in places such as] Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia."