The flight activity of a honey bee colony is an important
indicator of its strength and condition. We propose
the use of video sensing to monitor arrivals and departures
at the hive entrance. We describe the challenges of
tracking and counting bees visually in the uncontrolled
outdoor environment of an apiary, and detail a hardware
platform and software algorithms we have developed
to meet many of those challenges. Finally, we discuss
our preparations for rigorously evaluating the proposed
monitoring system and describe early results.