Use of a bee counter for remote and real time video monitoring of bee colony mortality

HAL Id: hal-02808813

https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-02808813

Submitted on 6 Jun 2020

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Use of a bee counter for remote and real time video monitoring of bee colony mortality

Benjamin Poirot, Valérie Nevers, Robin Azemar, Petra Gomez-Krämer, Bruno Lescalier, Michel Ménard, Didier Crauser, Yves Le Conte

To cite this version:

Benjamin Poirot, Valérie Nevers, Robin Azemar, Petra Gomez-Krämer, Bruno Lescalier, et al.. Use of a bee counter for remote and real time video monitoring of bee colony mortality. 39. Apimondia international apicultural congress, Sep 2013, Kiev, Ukraine. 2013. �hal-02808813�

Benjamin Poirot ^a , Valérie Nevers ^a , Robin Azemar ^a , Petra Gomez-Krämer ^b , Bruno Lescalier ^b , Michel Ménard ^b , Didier Crauser ^c , Yves Le Conte ^c

USE OF A BEE COUNTER FOR REMOTE AND REAL TIME VIDEO MONITORING OF BEE COLONY MORTALITY

One of the most recurrent need in beekeeping, as much for beekeepers than for scientists, is remote and real time monitoring of bee colony mortality. A parameter enabling to evaluate it reliably is the measure of the number of bees going in and out the hive.

A bee counter using video technology was developed in collaboration with the French National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA) of Avignon, APINOV engineering office, and the computer science, image and interaction laboratory (L3i) of La Rochelle University. Data collected are sent by GSM to a dedicated website.

This system allows to count bees going in and out the hive every day, to calculate a daily mortality rate (difference between total number of inputs and outputs) and assess colony activity (total number of bees went out during the day).

a

APINOV, Pôle technologique – 40 rue Chef de Baie 17000 La Rochelle FRANCE

Tel: +33 5 46 34 10 71, Fax: +33 5 35 54 01 98, www.apinov.com Contact: benjamin.poirot@apinov.com

b

Laboratoire Informatique Image et Interaction (L3i) – avenue Michel Crépeau 17042 La Rochelle, FRANCE

Tel : +33 5 46 45 82 62

Contact : michel.menard@univ-lr.fr

c

INRA, UR 406 Abeilles et environnement – Site Agroparc, Domaine Saint Paul 84914 Avignon Cedex 9 FRANCE

Tel : +33 4 32 72 26 01

Contact : yves.leconte@avignon.inra.fr

Environmental assessment is available with 3 bee counters on dadant or langstroth size.

The objective is to generate alerts when abnormal values are recorded by the counter on hives (statistical increase in bee mortality or decrease in colony activity).

Access and choose data to display on apialert website :

Download excel file and get raw data to exploit and create your own charts

Bee research : Environmental assessment:

The optical bee counter is also available for a small 4 frames “nuc” beehive. This type of beehive enables different kind of research.

Example of results C. Dussaubat et al. / Journal of Invertebrate Pathology 113 (2013) 42–51 :

« Model for the daily number of exits of honey bees from the hive following a quasi-likelihood approach (McCullagh and Nelder, 1989).

Here is shown the fixed model. Solid red curve (black curve in printed version) represents the predicted number of exits per bee for each case;

dashed curve represents 95% confidence interval for predicted values;

solid black lines are original data. »

This technology is available for marked bee counting (colors and number) and also enables to realize veterinary tests and toxicity study.

Optical total bee counter – Dadant format

Conclusion : On the one hand, used as an environmental tool, the system enables to act quickly in apiary when alerts are generated by a high mortality rate, which can - by extension- help to a better understanding of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). On the other hand, flight data recorded simultaneously, on multiple nucs and in real-

time, concerning cohort (color counter) or individuals (number counter) of a honey bee population, represent a powerful tool to study honey bee flight behavior.