Bees wearing QR codes tracked by AI cameras to help researchers save them in the wild
As pollinators, bees play a critical role in maintaining the health of U.S. agriculture, according to University of Oregon Associate Professor Lauren Ponisio.
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EUGENE, Ore. – Scientists are putting button-sized QR codes on hundreds of bees as a way to better understand the insects and help save their declining populations.
As pollinators, bees play a critical role in maintaining the health of U.S. agriculture, according to University of Oregon (UO) Associate Professor Lauren Ponisio. Be it coffee, almonds or a number of other crops, bees help ensure that those crop yields remain fruitful.
However, bees have undergone a dramatic and mysterious decline. In the past year, American beekeepers have lost more than half of their managed colonies of honeybees – the largest drop ever recorded, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Ponisio and her team of researchers are seeking to understand the cause of this decline and have launched a project that merges tech with Mother Nature to track bees.
A bee with a QR code sits atop flowers.
(Lauren Ponisio / UO Department of Biology / FOX Weather)
The project involved using cameras, artificial intelligence and QR codes to track a population of bees on a cannabis farm in Northern California.
A sample of bees were captured using nets and then brought into what Ponisio referred to as the "bee photobooth," which was a microscopic station with a clay couch where the bees could rest.
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The bees, which had been chilled in cooler fanny packs to slow them down, then had their pictures taken and their species identified.
This information was later woven into a unique QR code for each bee, a method often used by entomologists, Ponisio said. She noted that QR codes have allowed researchers to more effectively track the insects than using labels with 10-point font.
"The entomology collections were using them before menus," she said to FOX Weather.
A bee with a QR code sits on a flower.
(Lauren Ponisio / UO Department of Biology / FOX Weather)
'It doesn't really seem to affect them at all'
To track the bees in this project, tiny QR codes were printed out and hand-cut. They were then placed on the animals by using a tiny tweezer and non-toxic nail glue typically used for wearing acrylic nails, Ponisio said.
"It doesn't really seem to affect them at all," she said. "It's so small, it doesn't weigh anything. We definitely see them flying around with it completely unperturbed."
While the bees were being outfitted with QR codes, 20 AI-powered cameras developed by Oregon State University Assistant Professor Timothy Warren and his research group were installed throughout the farm, according to the UO.
Tim Warren of Oregon State University.
(Lauren Ponisio / UO Department of Biology / FOX Weather)
Officials noted that the AI model used in the cameras had been pretrained with bee images attached to species types. Researchers said that this learning will hopefully allow the cameras to develop their own detection methods as they track and image the insects.
The "smart cameras" were also trained with the images and information gathered from the bees that had gone through the "photobooth." With this information, the cameras would provide researchers the opportunity to track the insects more efficiently.
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"If you’re just walking around trying to find flowers and net bees, you’re going to spend hours and hours," Warren said. "It’s not a widely applicable or scalable technique compared to a grid of sensors throughout the landscape. There’s a huge burden on taxonomists that we hope computers and image analysis can solve."
Bee expert Mac Wilson at the "bee photobooth."
(Lauren Ponisio / UO Department of Biology / FOX Weather)
Bees are tough to fool
The smart, AI-powered camera stations were placed with fake flowers to attract the bees.
However, it seems that Mother Nature is trying to outsmart the smart cameras, as the bees have not been frequenting the camera stations very much, Ponisio said.
"The bees are very clever," she said. "They quickly have learned that these fake flowers we've been putting out there – they're highly attractive colors that bees like – they don't provide any rewards."
One method that could be used to attract the bees, which involves placing real flowers and nectar by the camera stations, has the potential to be harmful for the bees, according to Ponisio.
Researchers from the University of Oregon and Oregon State University are building an AI-assisted camera system to monitor bee populations.
(Lauren Ponisio / UO Department of Biology / FOX Weather)
She noted that flowers are similar to "bee bathroom doorknobs" in that a sick bee visiting a flower could leave behind microbial parasites that could contaminate the next visiting bee.
Because of this, Ponisio and her team are fine-tuning their approach to attracting the bees, and experimenting with UV lights to sterilize stations that lure bees with nectar.
The researchers will also make some tweaks on the technical side of the project, such as making the system capable of night vision and developing reliable functionality in areas with spotty or non-existent internet access.
Pollinator researcher Lauren Ponisio in a sunflower field in Yolo County of northern California.
(Lauren Ponisio / University of Oregon / FOX Weather)
"I love bees – they're just so lovely and adorable, and I love watching them visit flowers and all of their infinite variety and beauty and diversity," Ponisio said. "I love being part of something that will hopefully help, in the long term, bolster our cultural system."