Name: TopLab - Toplak Laboratory e.U.
Address: AT

The worlds first intelligent mobile population estimator
for Varroa Destructor.

open beta in 66 countries!

est. Bee Keepers
in Europe (2010)

620,000

tons of honey

harvested (Europe 2010)

220,000

The Idea

One App to support them all...

In the fight against the bee parasite Varroa Destructor there is a new, easy and effective weapon to support state of the art therapies.

The App "Varroa Counter" helps to early recognize critical mite live stock and to estimate optimal treatment points in time.

An Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Computer Vision (CV) superseed time-consuming manual counting of mites. Indeed.

The Problem

Why count?

Fighting the Varroa Destructor mite

Without periodical counting of dead mites, which fall down into trays on bottom of bee hives, it is difficult to determine optimal points in time for counter measures. This is true for chemical and thermal therapies.

The mite population grows exponential. If bee masters treat too late bee colonies are irreversible damaged. This means less honey and less pollination in agriculture! In worst cases whole bee colonies are lost!

The damages - direct and indirect - are considerable. The overall economic performance of bees for pollination to produce food for mankind was estimated to about € 153 billion per year. *)

Damages due to bee extinction have been estimated up to about € 300 billion worldwide. **)

*) United Nations Environmental Programme, Global Bee Colony Disorders and other Treats to insect Pollinators (2011) link

**) National Center for Scientific Research CNRS (2013) link

The Problem

The Idea

Smart

Smart estimation

Time is money. Who has time to waste?

average duration of a

manual estimation cycle

10 min

our goal: duration of a
Varroa Counter estimation

1-2 min

Affected Regions

The global occurence of infestation.

Critical progressions were observed in US (30%), Europe (up to 53%), near East (up to 85%) and Japan (20% sudden losses)[Neumann and Carreck, 2010]. Due to the trend to milder winters breeding stops cease and the mites spawn all-season. However, some bee species seem to be more resistant than others.
The world map below gives a simplified impression of infestation based on latest research at University of Florida (UFL).

Damages vary locally and from year to year and reach from low percentages up to total loss. The system behind is complex and there still is no comprehensive theory for explanation.

Varroa Counter is a helping tool for a global problem

Currently nine languages are supported: Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish

Supporters

Our first official version of the Varroa Counter is very promising and we know that there is further work to do. We plan to integrate new features for hive management and know that the data generated is of unique, standardized quality and an added value for research.

Varroa Counter helps to fully understand all aspects of interaction with other bee diseases and environmental impacts on bee colonies around the globe. With your help we will come closer to this goal!

Join the circle of supporters, who bring our idea ahead. With a little contribution
supporters help us to strengthen our campaigns and activities for strategic cooperation, marketing and product development.

The idea for the Varroa Counter was developed in cooperation with the EcoDesign company - Prof. Dr. Wimmer. EcoDesign supported the app development with expert advisory, image aquisition & field tests. They also developed a prototype of the "Varroa Stative", a gadget for more convenient usage of the Varroa Counter App.