AI in the Bee Yard: Getting Started with AI for Beekeepers

Beekeeping Today Podcast Short: AI in the Bee Yard

Jeff Ott

Welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast Shorts, your quick dive into the latest buzz in beekeeping.

Becky Masterman

In 20 minutes or less, we'll bring you one important story, keeping you informed and up to date.

Jeff Ott

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Becky Masterman

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Jeff Ott

AI in the Bee Yard. This will be fun to talk about in a short and a short series

Becky Masterman

I mean maybe at the end of our conversation AI will be talking for us, Jeff.

Jeff Ott

Oh, you know, that would be good.

Becky Masterman

Wait, it would be good? I don't want AI to take our jobs.

Jeff Ott

Hey Yeah, that's true. That's true. But you also, so the what's kind of spurred us in this direction was a great article that you had in September's Bee Culture. Were you interviewed ChatGPT about beekeeping?

Becky Masterman

Yes, I started thinking about AI and how beekeepers were going to use it and It was it was kind of interesting because I tested ChatGPT, which is an AI chatbot. And I started testing it by asking questions that I 100% knew the answer to, or giving it tasks that would just maybe help with organization. And I immediately found that although a great tool, one needed to learn how to use these chatbots, I think, so that they're for their advantage, not a potential disadvantage

Jeff Ott

I agree 100%. you know me, I'm a I'm a I like using technology. You like technology, yep.

I like technology. I always say I have it's not a new thing, it's not a new acquisition And so the whole AI has really turned a lot of the technology around in terms of it's adding a layer on top of technology. And what it does is is is being able to I don't want to say think for me, which some people might think that's an improvement, but it's it's the it's the ability to have a third set of eyes on on reviewing my assumptions or my beliefs or challenge what I'm thinking or saying.

It's like having another team member.

Becky Masterman

Yeah, it's interesting because I think we should say first off, even before we get into some of the definite benefits But AI is controversial and beekeepers are all about controversy. I mean it could be people could be definitely against AI because of the environmental impacts of using the AI to to answer questions that maybe they could have figured out themselves or people are are worried about AI taking jobs away. And so there are there are some definite concerns, environmental and personnel and and also AI is not always right. And

Jeff Ott

no

Becky Masterman

and one of and one of my my favorite just when I've been doing these comf having these conversations, trying to figure out exactly how how AI might work for beekeepers. I laugh because th the AI chatbot will often refer to itself as a beekeeper. And so I'll be like So do you really keep bees?

And it would say, oh, I shouldn't have said that, and it'll kind of correct itself and just talk about the access that it has to information. But there will be definite I have called I've called AI on a number of on statements that just aren't true. So that's that's kind of the negative.

But like why don't you share maybe some of the positive that you've found?

Jeff Ott

Well, before we even talk about the positive things about it, I just want to restate that we're not looking to replace training with AI. Training does an AI does not take the place of a good mentor it doesn't take take the place of a I don't know, I'll say a good book. Oh, there you go.

Exactly. Or nor does it take over a good podcast. it is it be it can become an assistant or supplement to those other well-founded sources of of beekeeper information.

The things that AI does well, it can it likes to create spreadsheets. So if if you like to do if you like to keep track of things in spreadsheets or tables It can do that. So like for mite counts.

So if you want to do mite count, let's say you're doing OAV vapors or you're doing anything and you're going to do mite washes or mite counts. Instead of keeping them on a piece of paper, it can, you can enter into chat, have it develop a spreadsheet or a table. And it can keep track of that for you.

So, you know, your an initial wash, your initial drop, 24 hours, 48, 72 And you can keep track of that by hive, and then you can do all sorts of graphs or do whatever else you want to or do nothing with it. It can also help organize your your thoughts. So if you were to go through your hive and do inspections, you can talk into your recorder on your mobile device, your phone, and have that translated and then give that to chat and chat can organize that into hive inspections.

And there's in fact applications for phones that will do that for you, such as our friends at HiveTracks now have that capability There are many good things that AI can do for a beekeeper in the bee yard and once they get home at in their home office.

Becky Masterman

I like that AI has access to all the scientific research literature out there and all the extension literature out there. So they go deep as far as if you are looking for a specific citation or you heard something You can sometimes get to the bottom of it by asking AI to find that reference and then you can know it where you know a certain honey bee fact or management idea came from. I also I like the fact that it's very good at statistics and so that's a that's something I haven't used a lot, but it's just it's so it's very, very powerful as far as that's concerned.

It's so interesting. that I think with beekeeping, we're just at the very beginning of figuring out how to use AI for beekeeper benefit. You can go into a chatbot right now and you can say, I'm looking into potential grant funding for honey bee research.

And you can it can come up with different sources of or or maybe you want to look for grant funding for habitat planting. And you can actually look for resources that will help you get there. And then Jeff, the crazy thing is you can actually ask chat or another AI chatbot to help you write that grant.

So it's just it really does save people some some time, but you have to make sure that you your eyes are on it to make sure that It's not making anything up.

Jeff Ott

Always, always, always treat them as maybe a student or an intern. So you ask them to do some information, but you always double check it and make sure it's it's it's correct because if you go out there and say, hey, I did this and ask, I don't know, some of those attorneys that may have you know, made the news by preparing legal briefs by chat. that it's it can make things up.

So you don't want to put your name yeah. And you can ask all the chatbots, you know, w name your reference. Give me the reference that you are citing for this, and then double check those.

Because they hallucinate and they make things up.

Becky Masterman

And I we're only gonna we're only kinda talking about that first article. I do wanna for sure talk about the second article that I ha I put together for bee culture eventually. But what I will say is that f when I ha wrote both of those articles, I was always very careful to also ask Ask the AI chatbots, how do I reference you?

Because I think that one of the best ways to use AI is not secretly, and to make sure that we give it credit. just so that you don't get in trouble for either y saying something that maybe isn't true or you also just acknowledge it kind of show your work if that makes sense. And I do believe that there are um, you know, maybe not in some classes, some, you know, high school classes or college classes, but I believe that There are a lot of different places where using AI is is very acceptable as far as putting together, for example, a grant application.

I don't think that everybody thinks that's a bad thing. And I think if you can figure out how to communicate more clearly using that technology, that's fantastic. I think that can be really helpful.

Jeff Ott

I'm curious how did how did the chatbot tell you how to reference it so reference the information it provided you

Becky Masterman

it's I'd have to oh you asked me a question. I wish I had it in front of me Jeff It it's funny because in some some instances it told me I didn't need to, but I always said I wanted to. I so I've done a number of different chatbots and it would give me the chatbot name.

and then sometimes the company name. And if I right there was there was one where I looked, I had it made it make an illustration. that I'll talk about later, but I gave it a picture, an imperfect picture, because there was a beautiful honey bee, but it was on it was on half of a flower.

It fixed the flower in the in the picture. But then when I asked it to credit to credit, you know, for the for the illustration, it credited itself and then it said with with the photo provided by Rebecca Masterman or something something like that. So but it kind of it kind of gave Just some some good guidance.

But I will say, and this is so hard as a writer because I write monthly for Bee Culture, and I've never used I've never used AI for writing because it's too sc it's too scary because what happens is even in when I'm asking chat and or or the other AI chatbots, I was really upfront about what I was doing as far as writing articles. But and looking for quotes. And so but it was it was funny because it immediately wanted to write the whole article for me.

It immediately laid it out and it told me what to say. And I kept saying, No, I want to just say what your answers are. I don't want you to write the article.

But it became really clear that it's it's it's very ready and it's almost trained to write for you because I would just have to ignore it kept telling me how to say it and it also would like tell me how to how to do the article and I just kept ignoring that because I wanted to make sure that it was me writing the article and not AI. But I think that's it's just interesting because I f Finally, Jeff, I finally found a great place for any kind of a typo or misspelling that are in my articles. They're just proof that I'm the one writing them.

Jeff Ott

This is how you can verify this is not AI.

Becky Masterman

Find the error. Find the find the comma that's not supposed to be there. Go ahead.

Jeff Ott

That's true. Well we've talked about where it's AI can be used real briefly and we've real briefly talked about some of the cautionary tales about AI, it hallucinates, it can make things up. it can assume things that you may or may not have told her. What do you like to do with AI when you're using it to make sure that you receive the information? that you can lean on or that you can believe in?

Becky Masterman

That's a good question. I'm very nervous about the information. I've actually had AI translate an article for me that was in old German.

And very carefully because it had to be reined in and it and when I would I would clarify, are you sure that there's a sentence that says this? Sometimes it would take a step back and say, well, I kind of provided an interpretation, but here's what it said. So it will give you the information, but you do have to really make sure that it's not literally just telling you what you want to hear because that I don't I haven't found the setting.

I haven't looked for it. But the if people have never used a chatbot before, you will find them to be very friendly and you will find them to be very engaging and there are settings where you can take it down a notch or two so that it doesn't seem like it's trying to have a relationship with you or it's friends with you. But I finally got a chatbot to start swearing.

So I kind of think that's a victory. But Oh, there's a goal. Wait.

Okay, sorry everybody. But it I thought it was kind of like whoa. But I do think it's It's making sure you're you're going back and asking the question.

If you see something that maybe doesn't see that seems too easy or too good to be true, questioning it makes sense. And I will say for that article When I asked the chatbot to, for example, look at a picture of something that was going on in the colony, it got it wrong. It made some guesses and I get why it did it.

But it did not see what I was actually seeing. And so don't believe everything you read.

Jeff Ott

Well, I just real quick along those lines and to support what you're saying. This last summer I thought Hey, I'm gonna try this with with chat and because I when I do my look at my IPM boards, I'll often take a picture of them. And then go home when I'm later in the evening or later in the day, I'll go and look at it on on the big screen on the computer, and then I can count the mites a little bit better, especially if it's about to rain.

And so I thought, hey, I can take these photos and give them to Chat and say, count the mites for me. So I said, Chat, can you do this? Oh yes, my friend Jeff, I can do that very well.

And I said, well, great, buddy chat. Let's let's I'm gonna start feeding you these photos. And it says, do it, man, do it.

I can do all of this for you. And I said, Chat, you're my best pal. And so I got this going and I and I was feeding it to Chat and Chat, oh this is great.

This is great, Jeff. This is really good. This is the number here.

Uh in fact what I'm doing, I'm gonna tell you the number I count And that I'm definite or are are mites. And then I'll tell you what I think might be mites, but I'm not sure. So those are unsure.

All right. I said, chat, man, you are the best. And I'm not even paying you for this.

And chat was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's do it. Give 'em to me. So I got back and then I started looking at him, looking at him, and I said, Well What hey chat can you go back through this and circle the mites?

Uh-huh. Oh yes, I can do that, Jeff. I'd I want to make you happy, Jeff.

I said, great. Let's I'm looking forward to it. So chat sent me back this picture and all these little blue circles on it and I started looking for little blue circles.

There was nothing in the center of those little blue circles. Zero, zero mites. Mites all over the place.

I said, well, chat, and so I sat down there and painstakingly did red circles around all the real mites that I could find. I said, Chat, take a look at this. These are the real mites.

And so I sent it back to chat and chat writes back to me and says, Oh, well, I might have maybe I'm not doing it right. Let me take another look at this. And then it you know, the little alliance is thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking.

And it kinda finally comes back and says, I can't do that. And so it's like, well, WTF chat, I we've spent all this time and you're doing all these spreadsheets and everything and you're just making this stuff up and the chat says, you know I can't do that, it's beyond my capabilities, and it's just like you could have led with that, Jack. Oh that's you could have led with that.

So Folks, as we wrap up the first segment of many on AI, there's a couple things is that chat is a tool. like anything else that's in your hive bucket or in your toolbox. And its effectiveness is only as good as the tool is designed and how you use it.

And so it's not magic. It's not God in a box. It's it is a tool.

And it's You have to use it very carefully and judiciously and m and don't trust it.

Becky Masterman

Don't trust it. And you've said some very, I think, wise words is that it's evolving. So the capacity for chat or an AI bot to circle those mites Is going to change over time.

And it's going to get better at looking at pictures and it's going to get better at figuring out what it's looking at. There's no doubt that in ten years, every I think beekeeping course is going to talk about the use of AI. I think it's just it's it's a tool that we're just starting to talk about, but it's really important that we start figuring out some guidance and start figuring out some of the great possibilities that we have using AI.

Jeff Ott

I agree and I look forward to exploring AI more in future AI shorts and yeah this will be good and if folks if you if you're sitting there and you have an idea about what you wanted to hear us talk about on these future in this series let us know and and if you have any fun stories let send us a note to and maybe can use those. Thank you Becky for joining today.

Becky Masterman

Absolutely this was a lot of fun.

Jeff Ott

Now I gotta ask Chat about how I end this episode.