The Royal Presence Certifier (RPC) provides the beekeeper with a device for determining that the European honey bee queen which was initially resident in a managed hive remains present without the beekeeper having to open the hive for inspection. The RPC functions by sensing the movement of a tag (glued to the dorsum of the queen's thorax) passing by a sensor located within the hive. The feasibility of the RPC to certify the presence of the marked queen, thus excluding the possibility of an Africanized queen, will be proven with a work plan that includes construction and testing of a brassboard version of the RPC. The testing includes both laboratory tests and field testing with active hives.Applications:Automatic verification of the European honey bee queen in managed hives will enable much improved control of the spread of Africanized honey bees. This will mitigate some of the restrictions of beekeepers in quarantined regions in moving their hives. It also lowers the legal liability of those beekeepers.
