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🐝 Detect orientation flights

🎯 Purpose​

Detect young bee orientation flights to monitor colony health, track successful bee development, and understand learning behaviors at the hive entrance.

🎭 User Story​

  • As a beekeeper interested in colony development and bee lifecycle
  • I want to monitor when young bees are taking their first orientation flights
  • So that I can assess colony health, successful brood development, and seasonal emergence patterns

🚀 Key Benefits​

  • Development tracking: Monitor successful emergence and maturation of young bees
  • Colony health indicator: Regular orientation flights indicate healthy brood development
  • Seasonal insights: Track emergence patterns and colony growth cycles
  • Research value: Data for understanding bee learning and navigation development

🔧 Technical Overview​

Identifies characteristic flight patterns of young bees learning their hive location, including hovering behaviors, circling patterns, and repeated approach/departure cycles. Uses movement analysis to distinguish orientation flights from normal foraging or defensive behaviors.

📋 Acceptance Criteria​

  • Detects hovering and circling flight patterns near entrance
  • Identifies repeated short-duration flights (2-10 minutes)
  • Distinguishes orientation flights from other flight behaviors
  • Tracks orientation flight frequency and timing patterns
  • Counts daily/weekly orientation flight events
  • Correlates with seasonal brood emergence patterns

🚫 Out of Scope​

  • Individual bee age assessment (behavioral patterns only)
  • Inside-hive brood development monitoring
  • Navigation success tracking after flight completion
  • Detailed flight path mapping beyond entrance area

🏗️ Implementation Approach​

  • Movement analysis: Track unusual flight patterns around entrance area
  • Pattern recognition: Machine learning model trained on orientation vs. normal flight
  • Duration tracking: Monitor short flights with return patterns
  • Behavioral classification: Distinguish hovering, circling, and learning behaviors
  • Seasonal correlation: Track patterns relative to brood development cycles

📊 Success Metrics​

  • Orientation flight detection accuracy >60% (challenging due to subtle behavioral differences)
  • Pattern recognition for 3+ distinct orientation behaviors
  • Seasonal correlation with known brood emergence periods
  • Processing capability for multiple simultaneous orientation flights
  • Data useful for research applications

🔗 Related Features​

📚 Resources & References​

  • Research on bee orientation and navigation learning
  • Studies on young bee flight development patterns
  • Computer vision approaches for flight pattern analysis

💬 Notes​

Lower priority feature due to complexity of distinguishing orientation flights from other behaviors. Valuable for research applications and advanced beekeeping insights but not critical for basic monitoring.