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Thousands of honeybees equipped with tiny QR codes by Penn State scientists

Penn State researchers using mini QR codes to study bee movement
Penn State researchers using mini QR codes to study bee movement 02:33

STATE COLLEGE (KDKA) - Researchers at Penn State came up with a small but mighty way to learn honeybees' hive secrets.

Scientists glued teeny tiny QR codes, that are smaller than a pinky nail, to the backs of young bees to figure out how much time the pollinators spend buzzing outside their hives, collecting pollen and nectar. They also wanted to try to track the bees' travel habits.

"This summer we marked over 32,000 bees," said Robyn Underwood, a co-author on the paper and Penn State Extension educator in apiculture.

How the honeybee QR codes work

Biologists, entomologists, and engineers worked together and published a paper to share how they built a system to gather data from honeybees at six hive spots in Pennsylvania and New York.

As the busy bees buzz their way in and out of the hive, cameras with sensors detect their coded tags. Their little digital tags identify individual bees.

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Penn State researchers

"These are tiny QR codes that compared to the normal ones that we've seen before, these carry very low information, which means it carries just a number," said Diego Penaloza-Aponte, a Penn State doctoral student in electrical engineering and co-corresponding author on the study.

"So, when they go under the camera, we want to see that they left the hive or returned to the hive. And that it was that same individual. So, we're tracking the number of trips and how long the trips are," Underwood said.

What scientists have learned from bee QR codes

So far, the researchers have learned most trips are very short. Other bees were out of the hive for up to two hours.

"For now, what we can see is a lot of the trips are very short. They're gone less than five minutes because they're very efficient. They go to the flowers, they fill up, they come back, they want to empty out right away, go back and forth. That's how bees work. They are like, you know, busy as a bee," said Underwood.

Helping organic beekeeping

The researchers said the monitoring system could also help establish more practical standards for organic beekeeping.

"Pretty much in the continental U.S., you cannot be certified organic beekeepers. Because the amount of land area that is currently in the suggested regulations is so enormous," Underwood said.

Scientists and beekeepers are buzzing with excitement because this is part of a larger project, and the first step in solving how far bees will go to find food.

"As part of my research, I also work on detections using radars. So, we also want to track the bees not only through a time gap but also through space, so we know where they are by like gluing on top of them transponders," said Penaloza.

The researchers are also now collaborating with a team at Virginia Tech to look at how foraging times match decoded "waggle dances," which is how honey bees communicate where the food is to other bees in the colony.

You can check out the full text of the study at this link.

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