Vectech presents a smart bee prototype and Maryland native bee surveillance at the 2025 Entomological Society of America Meeting
November 11, 2025, Portland, OR
Findings from Vectech’s smart bee camera trap development and Maryland native bee surveillance efforts were presented in a Systematics, Evolution, & Biodiversity session at the Entomological Society of America annual conference. Within the USDA-funded grant period, Vectech’s Bee Team led by Principal Investigator Autumn Goodwin developed and iterated on a non-lethal camera-based “trap” that allows bees to fly freely into and out of the trap, and gathered biodiversity, attractivity, and image data using custom optics to support future bee identification algorithm development. Hannah Markle, Vectech’s lab manager and member of the Entomology team, shared this work completed by the Bee Team in a talk titled, “A non-lethal native bee camera trap to support sustainable agriculture practice and environmental protection.”
Hannah also thanked collaborators at the United States Geological Survey’s Native Bee Monitoring and Inventory Laboratory, including Sam Droege and Claire Maffei, for their generous contribution of hundreds of surplus bee specimens used to measure bee morphological features to define camera optics and resolution requirements. She also extended gratitude to Baltimore City partners at the National Aquarium Wetlands Habitat, Maryland Zoo, Upper Fells Point Community Garden, Mount Washington Preservation Trust Community Garden, and Filbert Street Garden for offering their spaces to complete bee surveillance and prototype testing.
Moving forward and pending follow-on funding, trap refinements will be completed by Jaykob Cave-Stevens, Vectech’s Hardware Team Lead, and insect detection algorithm development will be led by Thomas Jenkins, Vectech’s Computer Vision Team Lead. Ultimately, Vectech strives to continue supporting native bee biodiversity and agricultural and environmental protection practices through their innovative insect work.
For more information, please contact:
Autumn Goodwin
[email protected]
Hannah Markle
[email protected]
