Development of a monitoring system to assess honeybee colony health

Abstract

Rapid spread of Varroa destructor mite has resulted in high honeybee colony losses. Common monitoring practices are time consuming, manual and operator dependent. This work proposes a camera-based system, integrated inside the beehive, by means of an instrumented honeycomb. The goal is to design a monitoring system for detecting youngest infected bees during the warm seasons and foretic mite throughout the winter, providing the level of infestation inside the hive. Constraints and limits of the designed experimental setup are discussed.