<p>Honey bees use their strong sense of smell to locate flowering plants and collect their nectar and pollens. Based on this olfactory system, scientists have found ways to train honey bees to detect any object of interest just by its scent, thus leading to the development of sniffer bee technology. Although investigations of bees’ olfactory systems and odour conditioning date back to the 1900s, this idea gained more popularity in the later years, and many researchers took an interest in using bees to detect various volatile compounds. Using PER and SER-based conditioning, honey bees can be trained to detect multiple compounds by their odour. This odour conditioning has made the sniffer bee technology applicable to an array of targets, such as searches for hidden bombs, land mines, multiple drugs, or different pathogens. They can be used to identify and track an odour, either by employing bench-top assays or by letting them fly freely over an area of the suspect. There are some government institutions funding worldwide to conduct research in sniffer bee technology, one of which has led to the development of a handheld detector, VASOR, which works on the bee’s olfactory power. There are also high-tech sensors like LIDAR and geo-referencing, which monitor and detect honey bees flying over fields of hidden land mines. Ultimately, this review provides an insight into the research and advancements in this technology. There might come a day in the future when different organisations will use honey bees as a suitable biosensor, such as, bees might even find a role in airport security.</p> Graphical abstract <p></p>