Engineers design artificial intelligence varroa mite sensing bee hive | Bee Cause #1 | ABC Australia

Varroa mite is a blood sucking parasite that devastates bee colonies. Australia is the only continent still free from varroa. A team which worked on the Mars Rover project, has designed a hive that uses tiny cameras and artificial intelligence to detect hitch-hiking mites. And it could protect Australia’s most important pollinators.
EPISODE 2 | • Bee future: Fire and d...
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[@tedadams1324]

As a beekeeper in the United States, I hope that you Australians NEVER get Varroa into your beautiful country! These g-ddamned mites cause sooooo much frustration and heartache here. These little bastards need to eradicated from the face of this planet. Excellent work and awesome story! Thanks for posting!

[@Blue1Sapphire]

What about native bees. . . the smaller stingless variety. Are they affected as well by this mite?

[@FrederickDunn]

Very VERY interesting! Is there a youtube channel by this group of innovators where we can follow their progress?

[@jasonbates2977]

Varroa is in Australia! Sad sad week for beekeepers!

[@haydens2831]

Amazing 5 episode's thank you

[@beeornottobee4507]

Thanks you for interesting video! The hives are so unusual!!!

[@jimmy_x557]

Good on you guys

[@fionmor4893]

I love it... Australia is so innovative with bee keeping.... so after detection of the VD mite.... what is the procedure to kill them?... isolate the hives?.... almost impossible.... kill all the bees?.... what is next after detection

[@vadam4956]

Australian inventor is the best of the bests👍😊

[@ashman4809]

Did this detect Newcastle Port mites or is it now classed as a fail?

[@Oissir]

I've seen that in the USA it's treated with essential oils like thyme

[@AirRider-ez5of]

Ultra-short lasers will soon be available that eliminate the Varroa mite on bees. A Slovenian company is currently in development.

[@wkinne1]

They don't seem to have made much progress in the last year.

[@brianaurum7110]

Was this hive used at Port of Newcastle? If not is it being used to monitor surveillance zones around NSW eradication zones?

[@TimoAbraham]

these equipments must be really expensive, I'm a beekeeper myself and i keep apis cerana indica (reddish yellow bees) and they take care of verroa mites themselves and are hardy too

[@Oissir]

I've discovered that in the USA it's treated with essential oils like thyme.

[@MinnesotaBeekeeper]

How did that work for you?

[@serenitysoundsaustralia256]

No longer free now with this destructor Mite hotting Bee Hives in Port of Newcastle last week. NSW Bee lockdown and many hives and equipment destroyed.

[@Leigh5050]

I want to get a Purple Hive for the backyard

[@zlatnodoba4662]

Sorry to disappoint you but small 2MP RPi camera just won't cut it, best they can do is to take a picture from top/bottom of the bee. For finding varroa you will need a bit more powerful lenses. Unfortunately, they did not say anything about bee behavior, they will never wait to give them selfies, they will not enter bee hive one by one and last not all of them will get out (actually majority will remain in the hive). Given mentioned frequency of 1 sample per second I just don't see how this can relay on anything else than a pure luck. Last, they shown AI shield for RPi and yes it's correct that it can run of car battery but for how long? Let's be honest, rpi does not use most power efficient ARM chip, doesn't have, it's not designed for that. On top of that AI local AI accelerator chips are not famous on their low power consumption and you need to run them at least 8 hours per day. Given that each hive needs to have one of those devices in theory yes it could be powered by solar panel but how large panel? Or you could connect multiple of those devices to single battery and break everything by tangling in the mess of the cables. Don't get me wrong, I would like to see novel solutions against Varroa mite but this device seems to be very close to the edge of snake oil, even technically possible, current technology just isn't there yet (hopefully I'm wrong).

[@Hassanelogs]

Its connected with car battery and solar power. About camera, its can detect any other bug because of its Ai programming.

[@ripme6616]

A little bit of overkill, I would wager' especially when people like Paul stamets have engineered complete natural Solutions' Concerning bee and fungi symbiosis p.s I like the rough stuff

[@nickford5549]

Half this money was spent on breeding resistant colonies would solve the issue

[@alexk4233]

Now there are new adversities in the world - viral epidemics of bees. You need to be careful!

[@lokesh303101]

Artificial Intelligence.

[@lasource811]

How to waste a ton of money. Good job...

[@williamsummers6438]

Australia has lost control of its varroa infestation. Your attempted solutions have all been tried before without success elsewhere in the world. It can only and easily be solved by a hive redesign. The varroa problem lays in the thin walled hive designs that are universally deployed and which support the life cycle of varroa in 2 ways. 1. Low humidity. It is well known that varroa do not thrive in a humid environment. The precise mechanism is unknown, but it is an observed result. With a bee entry at the bottom of the brood chamber the natural (heavier) humidity runs out the entrance. Putting the entrance at the top of the brood will form a bucket of humidity. 2. Low insulation. A thin walled hive has very little insulation value and the temperature of the brood varies over the time of day and season. Above 37deg.c. and below 29deg.c. the pupa die. At 35deg.c. the pupa takes 10-11 days to hatch with 96-98 surviving. At 31 deg.c. the pupa takes 14-15 days to hatch with 89-100% surviving. Thin walled hives do not maintain a constant and high temperature internally that the bee pupa need to hatch quickly, allowing time for more varroa mites to hatch from each cell in which they are laid. A male first, and then a female, every thirty hours after that. I suggest that you utilize the excellent aerated concrete blocks that have for sale in Australia to make a ZEST DIY horizontal hive and reduce the varroa replacement rate to below stable. There is a free E-book on the ZEST hive webpage which shows how to do your own DIY version. Try it. You have nothing to lose, except your varroa.

[@michaeljoncour4903]

didn't work did it !!!!!!!!!!!!

[@davidabilash2962]

1 st like

[@UltFrizz]

Didn't age well