Only a few years again, fixed reporting on colony collapse dysfunction had the world questioning if honey bees had been on the verge of turning into an endangered species — or perhaps even worse. However now, simply a short while later, the image appears a lot better for our flying buddies. There undoubtedly are a variety of opinions on the matter, however the numbers do appear to indicate that bees are on the rebound in a giant approach.
That’s nice information, however it’s also a reminder simply how necessary bees are to us and the atmosphere. With out bees, lots of the crops we depend on for meals would wrestle to thrive, as these industrious pollinators are answerable for fertilizing vegetation that produce fruits, greens, nuts, and seeds. Past agriculture, bees additionally play a vital function in sustaining biodiversity, supporting ecosystems by pollinating wild vegetation that function meals and habitat for numerous different species.
Given their significance to us, it is smart that we’d need to do what we are able to to make sure the well being of honey bee populations. The pure first step in creating a technique to bolster bee populations would contain gathering information. In any case, in the event you have no idea the character of the issue you might be coping with (or if there’s a drawback in any respect!), it will be very troublesome to unravel. It is because of this {that a} group of researchers at Penn State College developed a novel bee monitoring system that makes it attainable to grasp their conduct in a approach that was beforehand unimaginable.
The group, in collaboration with electrical engineers and entomologists, devised a way to trace bees utilizing QR codes often known as AprilTags. These tags, smaller than an individual’s pinky nail, are glued to the backs of particular person bees and scanned by way of an automatic imaging system because the bees enter and exit their hives. This method offers exact information on foraging patterns, together with journey length, frequency, and environmental situations throughout every outing.
The system is powered by a community of six Raspberry Pi 4 single-board computer systems, every geared up with a Raspberry Pi Digital camera Module 3 and strategically positioned at hive entrances inside a 10-meter radius. These computer systems use Wi-Fi to wirelessly talk with each other. The ability setup features a 12-volt Lithium Iron Phosphate battery with a 100 Ah capability, which is stored charged by a 195-watt monocrystalline photo voltaic panel.
Every tag is a part of a custom-designed 44h12 AprilTag household, which encodes 44 information bits and offers a novel ID for over 6,000 bees. To make sure sturdiness and dependable detection, the tags are printed on matte sticker paper, coated with acrylic sealer to stop scratches, and hooked up utilizing pure shellac glue to reduce interference with the bees’ flight. The tags are learn by Raspberry Pi cameras mounted at hive entrances, which use AprilTag detection software program to decode the IDs and seize positional and orientation information from the bees.
In the middle of testing their system, the researchers have found some fascinating findings. Whereas most foraging journeys final mere minutes, some bees can spend over two hours away from their hive — a conduct beforehand unknown. Information collected from 32,000 tagged bees throughout six apiaries present that foraging conduct fluctuates with environmental elements, equivalent to flower availability. Furthermore, throughout weeks with fewer floral assets, bees are likely to take longer journeys, touring additional to safe enough meals.
The group isn’t stopping with honey bees. Plans are underway to adapt the system for different bee species and colony members, together with queens and drones. Moreover, they’re partnering with researchers at Virginia Tech to correlate foraging length with the "waggle dance," a communication methodology bees use to convey the situation of meals sources.The AprilTag is used to trace this bee’s exercise (📷: D. Penaloza-Aponte et al.)
An summary of the system (📷: D. Penaloza-Aponte et al.)
The testing setup (📷: D. Penaloza-Aponte et al.)
