Software for automated counting of bees and assessment of forager losses in honey and bumble bees
The assessment of forager losses is currently often conducted using a rather small number of bees (often about 100 or less, see Henry, 2012), which receive radio tags for identification. Honeybees are then registered when they return to the hive. Since this method is time and cost intensive and since due to the small number of bees assessed it involves a considerable uncertainty (e.g. in Henry et al., 2012, the coefficient of variation (CV) of homing success is up to 38%) we developed alternative methods based on video analysis, which require minimum effort and which result in much more accurate and less variable results.
Virtual gate defined in VideoCounter
A user defined red line drawn in our software VideoCounter defines a “gate”, which serves to count honeybees entering and leaving the hive.
Example of one day monitoring
Results of a one-day tracking experiment showing the number of bees entering and leaving a hive. Bees started to forage early in the morning and continued to forage until late evening.
Camera setup for automatically counting honeybees with VideoCounter
For automatic tracking a video camera is mounted in a weather-proof box. Bees are automatically tracked for a user defined period (and time).
Automatic assessment of forager losses using VideoCounter
Our software VideoCounter is used in conjungtion with a camera mounted above the entrance of the hive to automatically detect and count individuals bees. Individual honeybees are detected using pattern-recognition algorithms and the movement speed and direction is tracked. A virtual gate, i.e. a user defined virtual red line drawn in the software screen, is used to count individuals leaving and entering the hive. This method allows counting honeybees without obstructing the hive entry, which other methods usually do. After entering the start and end date and time for automated monitoring, entering and leaving honeybees are automatically tracked over one or several days. No supervision is required. After tracking over several days, results are available in both graphical and tabular form. The intra-day activity of foragers for one day is exemplarily shown in the figure below. Honeybees started to forage around sunrise and forager activity lasted until shortly after sunset.
Related links
Photography for Honeybee Brood Trials
High quality photography is a prerequisite for high throughput analysis of brood development and for successful automated counting of adult bees.
Software for evaluation of honeybee brood trials and colony assessment
HoneybeeComplete and IndiCounter is software for the evaluation of honeybee field (EPPO 170) and semi-field trials (OECD 75).
Low variability and uncertainty honeybee trials (GLP)
In order to meet protection goals defined by EFSA low variability and low uncertainty honeybee field or semi-field trials are needed.
