3D bees! – Scanned Beehive reveals bee life live in 3D

Zoologist Mark Greco and his colleagues at the Swiss Bee Research Centre in Bern, Switzerland, and researchers at the University of Bath, led by Professor Cathryn Mitchell and Dr. Manuchehr Soleimani is pioneering a new way to display it inside a beehive.

3D single Beehive photo
The technique is called diagnostic Radioentomology (DR) that scans the hive takes a series of 3D images. These images create a vivid picture of the news going on inside the hive, which means that we can achieve a greater insight into what the bees are doing behind closed doors. These live images produced by x-ray computerized tomography can also be used to track individual bees in the hive, so that the tracking of the Queen, again to give a greater insight into her movements.

Mr Greco told the BBC when interviewed, "the approach is non-invasive and does not alter their normal behaviour …..We can accurately assess the number of bees and where they are at the time of scanning. "

Researchers are working to improve this new technique, which will hopefully result in clearer 3D pictures, and more precisely the bee population, measuring quantities of pollen, wax and honey in a hive.

University of Bath researchers are also working on new computer models, which will hopefully provide better assessment of parasites and pathogens affect the hive.

"Because the method is extremely accurate, we will see critical thresholds pathogen and parasite loads and loss of food resources from which bee populations cannot recreate," explained Mr Greco, who is completing his PhD dissertation.

"[We will also examine] how pathogens such as mites, viruses, bacteria and fungi can interact both with each other and with the pressures on the environment or stress factors that produce colonial decline or collapse."

The team also hope that the new imaging technique may indicate what reduces the number of other solitary bee species.

"Many solitary bees feed on the same floral resources to those of honey bees, some also suffer from the same pathogens, such as fungal infestations in their nests."

UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, together with the British Government spending £ 10 million to research the population decreased bees, some of the money could be used to promote these new techniques to gain greater insight into the inner-workings of hives.