Preprint: BroodScan: A Honeybee Brood Scanner Technology

Paper: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.17.651227v1

Abstrakt:

Observing honeybee (Apis mellifera ) brood dynamics and host-parasite interactions, especially within sealed cells, is vital for colony health research but traditionally relies on disruptive or destructive methods. Here we present BroodScan, a monitoring system employing a modified consumer-grade Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) flatbed scanner for continuous, high-resolution basal imaging of brood cells directly within an active beehive. Our experiments, conducted over a 35-day period, demonstrate BroodScan’s capacity to track the complete honeybee brood development cycle from egg to adult emergence, yielding quantitative data such as an average egg stage duration of 72.93 ± 2.04 hours (n=58). Notably, the system provided detailed, time-lapse visual documentation of the complete intra-cellular reproductive cycle of the parasitic mite Varroa destructor within sealed worker cells, including the progression from foundress mite to multiple distinct offspring stages and their maturation. BroodScan offers a valuable, non-invasive tool that overcomes key limitations of previous techniques, opening new avenues for research into honeybee biology, colony health, and the impacts of diverse stressors like Varroa destructor , thereby promising to enhance our understanding and stewardship of these vital pollinators.

Anscheinend war zumindest im 3D Print auch https://pollenity.com/ involviert, die auch schonmal hier im Forum erwähnt wurden: Bee Smart Technologies

Cheers
Hannes

2 Likes

This technology looks Amazing !