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BeeCam-AprilTag: timing the flight duration of individual honey bees in remote field settings with AprilTag and
Sarabeth Brandt1, Diego Penaloza-Aponte1, Robyn M Underwood2
1School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, 16802, PA, USA.
None:
Understanding the behavior of social species that function as superorganisms requires first examining the behavior of individual members of the colony. We have developed a Raspberry Pi (RPi) and AprilTag-based camera system to record the trip durations of individual honey bees as they exit and re-enter the hive, enabling data collection of hundreds of individuals simultaneously in the context of their environment. This article details the real-time image processing capabilities of our system and the post-processing methods used to determine trip durations. AprilTag detections are collected in real-time as lines in a text file. The trip durations are obtained through a post-processing method that leverages observed honey bee behavior at the hive entrance to identify exits from and re-entries into the hive. For each AprilTag ID, detections are grouped into events. Trips are identified as consecutive "exit" and "enter" events.
