Meeting Abstract
With recent increases in colony losses and abnormal colony syndromes and behaviors (e.g. Colony Collapse Disorder), it has become more important than ever to examine honey bee (Apis mellifera) behavior. One challenge of studying honey bee behavior is to track them noninvasively, so the bees do not alter their normal behavior. To address this challenge, we developed an enclosed system that uses radio-frequency identification (RFID) to monitor honey bee behavior. The data gathered from the system can be used to create a spatial analysis model. The spatial analysis can be used as a predictive model to explain colony loss and determine potential outcomes for colonies. Moreover, it can be used to shed light on altruistic suicide which is a key characteristic of Colony Collapse Disorder. Each system had six RFID readers placed at a standardized distance of one another, and each bee was outfitted with a microchip programmed with a unique identification number (ID). Every reader in the system was attached to a small, single-board computer. The computer provided power to the reader and ran a python program that recorded each communication between its respective reader and microchips within threshold of the reader’s antenna. Every time the reader detected a microchip, the ID and timestamp were appended to a text file stored on the computer. The text file was then analyzed to develop the statistical spatial analysis. This system has applications far beyond the scope of honey bee colonies. Because it is not invasive, this system can be used to track any animal that can be outfitted with a 2.5 x 2.5 millimeter microchip. Furthermore, animals that can support larger RFID chips can be tracked at a larger distance than the microchip used in this experiment, enabling the study of free-living organisms.
