New Revolutionary Tools for Studying Honey Bee ‘Brood’ Diseases

You are here: Home » New Revolutionary Tools for Studying
Honey Bee ‘Brood’ Diseases

Using a specially designed GIGAmacro rig, we are capturing time-lapse gigapixel images to better understand the progression of honey bee 'brood' diseases. The resulting images, taken from both healthy and diseased combs, will not only elucidate the etiology of disease development, but also serve as an invaluable aid to beekeepers seeking to diagnose disease in their colonies. These images will potentially revolutionize extension efforts aimed at helping beekeepers preserve the life of their bees. For more information on this and other efforts of the team included on this project see: www.Beeinformed.org.
Dennis vanEngelsdorp, Department of Entomology, University of Maryland

The process involves photographing each honey bee frame using a GIGAmacro Professional Photography System, designed for capturing gigapixel images of macro sized subjects. The bee frames are removed from the hive box for a short period (15min to 1 hour) to be photographed, and are then returned. The gigapixel data captured during that time can then be studied for hours, and can be compared to subsequent imagery taken over the course of days, weeks, or months. Image sets may be examined using a variety of methods including the GIGAmacro Comparative Viewer, the GigaPan.org website, and the GigaPan Time Machine time-lapse viewer.

The research is directed by Dennis vanEngelsdorp, Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, and Jeff Pettis of the USDA-ARS Bee Research Laboratory. The imagery below was captured by researcher Jennie Stitzinger at the USDA Bee Research Laboratory.