One of the most critical causes of colony collapse disorder in beekeeping is caused by the Varroa mite. This paper presents an embedded camera module supported by a deep learning algorithm for the process of early detecting of Varroa infestations. This is achieved using a deep learning algorithm that tries to identify bees inside the brood frames carrying the mite in real-time. The end-node device camera module is placed inside the brood box. It is equipped with offline detection in remote areas of limited network coverage or online imagery data transmission and mite detection over the cloud. The proposed deep learning algorithm uses a deep learning network for bee object detection and an image processing step to identify the mite on the previously detected objects. Finally, the authors present their proof of concept experimentation of their approach that can offer a total bee and varroa detection accuracy of close to 70%. The authors present in detail and discuss their experimental results.

This paper presents a bee-condition-monitoring system incorporated with a deep-learning process to detect bee swarming. This system includes easy-to-use image acquisition and various end node approaches for either on-site or cloud-based mechanisms. This system also incorporates a new smart CNN engine called Swarm-engine for detecting bees and the issue of notifications in cases of bee swarming conditions to the apiarists. First, this paper presents the authors’ proposed implementation system architecture and end node versions that put it to the test. Then, several pre-trained networks of the authors’ proposed CNN Swarm-engine were also validated to detect bee-clustering events that may lead to swarming. Finally, their accuracy and performance towards detection were evaluated using both cloud cores and embedded ARM devices on parts of the system’s different end-node implementations.