Project Grant 20266702145831

Mississippi State University received a $591,500 Project Grant award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program (CFDA 10.310), effective March 1, 2026 through February 28, 2029. The award supports the development and testing of a portable, lower-cost radar tracking system designed to monitor individual honey bee foraging behavior and movement patterns across agricultural landscapes. The project will deliver a working tracking platform that uses commercial radar transmitters paired with multiple receiving units to detect lightweight tags placed on foraging bees, enabling continuous tracking over larger areas than currently practical. This technological capability addresses critical gaps in understanding honey bee colony collapse disorder by providing detailed information on where individual bees forage in real landscapes.

In addition to the hardware platform, the project will produce open datasets, predictive models, and stakeholder-facing extension materials for use by researchers, beekeepers, and the broader agricultural community. The research team will integrate bee movement tracking data with landscape information derived from publicly available land-cover data and drone-based imagery to develop models explaining how bees use space under various conditions, including exposure risks to stressors such as parasites, agrochemicals, and nutrition. These deliverables are intended to support more informed decision-making regarding hive placement and pollinator habitat programs, with potential economic implications for protecting the billions of dollars in annual crop production that depend on pollination services.