Using A Smartphone to Monitor Varroa Destructor in Honey Bee Colonies

Document Type

Project

Lead Author Type

CIS Masters Student

Advisors

Dr. Jonathan Engelsma, jonathan.engelsma@gvsu.edu

Embargo Period

2-27-2018

Abstract

Varroa mite, also known as varroa destructor (1), is a parasitic mite that infests honey bee colonies and transmit viruses to the bees, and is the major cause of bee disease and bee population decline (2). There is an effective method for varroa mite monitoring that can help quantify the extent of an infection. Some beekeepers are implementing this method, but they are not performing the process correctly and getting erroneous results that exacerbates the problem. One of the steps of the process requires the person to agitate a jar vigorously up and down for at least one minute. For an effective count, it is critical that the duration and rigor of the shaking motion is correctly performed.

A mobile application using device accelerometers was implemented to teach beekeepers to understand and perform the method correctly. Additional research was done to use computer vision to count the removed mites automatically

And for the title, actually this extra time I am taking is because if I do not get something extra done (what I am trying to do right now), we will slightly change the title. So far it is: "Using smartphone to monitor varroa destructor in honey bee colonies.

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