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A graduate student developed a system which monitors honey bees
STATES CHRONICLE – It’s no mystery that honey bees are in danger, as their populations are slowly withering. Scientists have tried to come up with many ways to stop bees from disappearing and, now, a graduate student from Simon Fraser University in Canada seems to have found a possible solution. With the help of a tracking system, she will try to decode what bees are telling each other.
Monitoring honey bees to see if their behavior changes
Oldooz Pooyanfar developed a monitoring mechanism which makes use of IoT technology to discover how honey bees communicate and to track what they might be saying to each other. This should help us discover what the health condition of the insects is, as well as find out how to better protect them.
Over the last ten years, the honey bee population in North America has decreased by 30 percent. This affects the pollination process, leading to terrible consequences for the environment. Also, these falling numbers prevent scientists from better studying honey bees.
Any abnormality will tell experts if they have to intervene
This is why Pooyanfar came up with this innovative idea. She developed a monitoring platform, which was then installed in the walls of several bee hives from Cloverdale Field, situated south of Vancouver. Then, she also equipped the hives with tiny sensors with microphones and accelerometers incorporated.
These sensors capture any sounds and vibrations made by the honey bees, as well as the temperature and humidity levels inside the hives. This should allow scientists and beekeepers identify abnormal behavior among honey bees, and allow them to intervene.
Pooyanfar hopes her system will help scientists find out more about the bees’ daily activity, and tell them how to influence their environment for the best. If the experiment is successful, this monitoring platform might be widely embraced by scientists, as it provides more information than the current monitoring methods.
Image Source: Max Pixel
