Annotated Honey Bee Hive Frame Photos from USDA-ARS Field Experiments, 2013-2022

3,003 annotated hive frame photographs in PNG format, collected from managed honey bee colonies during field experiments by USDA-ARS Tucson and collaborators from 2013 to 2022. The dataset includes 13 subdirectories organized by date and apiary location, with each image paired with XML and TXT annotation files for object detection. It was curated in 2024-25 under a USDA-NIFA award.

Use Cases

• Train object detection models to identify CappedHoneyCell, CappedWorkerBroodCell, and EmptyCombCell based on the annotated image categories.
• Analyze spatial patterns of brood and honey within hive frames across different apiary locations and years.
• Develop automated hive inspection tools using the provided LabelImg XML and YOLO TXT annotation formats.

Strengths

• 3,003 annotated images provide a substantial base for model training.
• Annotations are provided in two formats (XML and TXT), supporting multiple computer vision frameworks.
• Data spans 9 years (2013-2022) and multiple apiary locations in Arizona, offering temporal and geographic variety.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The dataset is a curated subset of a larger 'loose collection', which may imply inconsistent original data collection methods.

Provenance

Source

USDA-ARS Tucson, Arizona, in collaboration with Utah State University and commercial operations.

Collection Method

Acquired from field experiments with managed honey bee colonies using multi-sensor data collection.

Time Range

2013 to 2022

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 22:47:43.812772; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Arizona, USA (Carl Hayden Bee Research Center, Maricopa Agriculture Center, Red Rock Agriculture Center, Santa Rita Experimental Range)