Jürgen Tautz is the founder of the BEEgroup, a research entity at the University of Würzburg in Germany that is studying ways to keep bee populations healthy. He also works with the HoneyBee Online Studies (HOBOS) group, which promotes education along with developing an information database on bee-havior. Tautz and colleague Hartmut Vierle have used M16xxE smart cameras from Vision & Control GmbH to register the honeybees in a population and draw up individual movement profiles.

Both the education and research aspects of the BEEgroup’s work are motivated by concern for the future of our planet. Bees are irreplaceable as pollinating insects, a role in which they make a vital contribution to biodiversity and to food production for mankind. The U.S. beekeeping industry, for example, estimates that bees are responsible for pollinating one-third of the country’s food. The phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder (CCD) is killing hives at an alarming rate, and scientists are trying to figure out why.

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