This National Science Foundation (NSF) Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (CFDA 47.084) Program award provides $305,000 to Obeewan Technologies Inc. to develop a bio-acoustic luring system that can rapidly and accurately locate queen honey bees within managed hives. The project aims to improve beekeeping efficiency and address a critical challenge in modern apiculture by leveraging queen bee communication signals to enable quicker queen identification and minimize colony disturbance. The...
This $300,000 Project Grant award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (CFDA 10.310) will support the development and testing of the "eBeevet" functional sensor framework designed for bee hives. The framework will utilize machine learning methods to analyze data and propose solutions to address the drastic declines in honeybee populations that have occurred over the past two decades. The project aims to create scalable data management...
The National Science Foundation awarded a $255,262 Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I Project Grant to IF, LLC of Stoughton, WI for the period of January 15, 2022 through December 31, 2022. The grant supports the development of an Automated Continuous Varroa Mite Monitor for Honeybee Hive Health under the NSF Engineering program (CFDA 47.041). The Engineering program seeks to improve quality of life and economic strength through fostering innovation in engineering research and education....
This $305,007 federal Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Biological Sciences (CFDA 47.074) program will support the development of a research hub for automated bee identification, data sharing, and citizen science using computer vision technology. The key products and services to be delivered under this 3-year award include: Creation of a large, expertly-labeled image dataset of at least 1,000 North American bee species to train an AI-based bee classification model...
This National Science Foundation Project Grant of $544,492 will fund research at Montana State University from August 1, 2022 to July 31, 2025 under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041). The research aims to develop high-fidelity computational models and physical experiments to better understand the structural mechanics of floral stamens during buzz pollination by bees. This will provide insight into how vibratory forces optimize pollen release. The researchers will quantify forces bees...
This $704,499 five-year federal Project Grant award, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074), supports research at Montana State University to investigate the impacts of asymptomatic honey bee virus infections on bee health and flight performance. The project will conduct laboratory experiments to elucidate the relationships between viral loads, heat stress, and antiviral responses in individual honey bees, using flight as an indicator of overall...
This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) provides $372,442 to Kansas State University to develop an automated bee identification and data sharing platform. The key objectives are: Creating a large, expertly-labeled image dataset of at least 1,000 North American bee species to train computer vision algorithms. Developing an AI-based classification model using convolutional neural networks to identify bee species from images....
This $300,000 National Science Foundation project grant supports the Biodiversity Outreach Network's IDIGBEES Network initiative. Under the Biological Sciences CFDA 47.074 program, the awardee will digitize over 350,000 bee specimen records and 6,600 images from natural history collections. This comprehensive digitization effort aims to map bee species distributions, identify data gaps, document climate impacts on bees, and establish networks to utilize findings for research, education,...
This three-year $240,000 National Science Foundation project grant supports research investigating host-pathogen dynamics in response to resource pulses in bees. The grant was awarded under the Biological Sciences program of the NSF Division of Biological Infrastructure to study how mass blooming cover crops and surrounding landscape floral resources impact bee disease resistance, pathogen infection, and transmission. Specifically, the fellow will examine how resource pulses from vetch crops...
This $750,000 Project Grant award from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (CFDA 10.310), will fund research to develop a new approach for protecting honey bees against viruses that threaten colony health and pollination services. The project combines expertise in engineered gut symbionts, peptide secretion systems, and honey bee physiology to continuously deliver antiviral peptides within the bee digestive tract....