Smart Hive, technology for the honey bees.

[van from Arkansas]

Ok, technology is here for the honey bee hive: acoustics, humidity, weight and temperatures.

As a HOBBYIST I plan to implement the latest technology and direct thus towards one hive; my smart hive:

1.  Hive weight will be monitored every half hour then transferred to my iPhone via NEAR FIELD CONTACT, NFC, which is soon too replace Bluetooth.  Weight informs of FLOW or DEARTH.

2.  Outside temp and humidity along with inside temp and humidity will be transferred to my iPhone via WiFi, then to the cloud for analytics by downloadable application.  Hive temp informs me of brood when the temp is 92F, no more spring guessing.  Humidity informs me of condensation dangers whereas I lost a breeder quality hive in 2017 to water drops on the cluster.

3.  Acoustics:  this is a new and exciting area for me.  Sounds of the hive are recorded, transferred to the cloud and analytics by AI.  The queen ABANDON THE HIVE signal has already been identified as well as the queenless roar in which most are familiar.  This is part of a world study of honeybee hive sounds, already 2,000,000 recorder hive sound downloads being analyzed by AI with input from individual beekeepers such as myself.

Do I know what I am doing, no way!  I just pay for the stuff; download and submit data.  Remember I am a hobbyist, so the money is no never mind as long as I have fun.  I look forward to the science as I have no knowledge of bee acoustics, I mean none at all.  However when I heard the queen abandon the hive sound, I was hooked.  I thought this is a field I want to enter, where do I sign up.  There are strict rules on Beemaster for advertising so I have purposely not offered links.

Skeptical are ya, well, I have always thought skepticism is a good thing.  Manage a bee hive from iPhone, sounds foolish, kinda silly but technology is already here.  Of course nothing beats eyes on inspections but a text may one day alert me to swarming, or queenless or whatever.

Cheers
Van

[The15thMember]

This sounds like an awesome experiment!  I wish I had all those toys to play with just for kicks!    I'm sure it'll be really interesting to see how the technology performs, and whether the bees will dupe the systems.  Perhaps the bees will prove once again that the hive mind is superior to any technology!!  Bwahahaha!  Sorry, that got a little supervillainous.      Good luck, Mr. Van, and keep us updated on the hive of the future. 

[Beelab]

Good day Mr Van. I have an observation system such as you describe in some of my hives. Another brand though. The signal gets send to the company via a phone chip and the information is converted to graphs I can view in my browser for each hive.
Best is that one can watch the colonies from anywhere in the world. Peace of mind.

[Oldbeavo]

Commercially we used scales to monitor hive weight, the weight is taken at 5:30 am before the bees start flying.
it come to my phone using the network. The scale monitors 2 hives of the group of 50.
If the bees are 100-150 km from home it allows you to plan what to do, we know if a double, single brood plus super full depth gets close to 60kg the it is getting full and we need to do something.
Also daily gains allow for planning of when you need to act.

[saltybluegrass]

Van , as much as I hate to admit it, I cannot read. I don?t want a huge complicated hobby in bees-
I want to control beetles/ test for mites and expand/ add/ remove  boxes when necessary.
I really feel less than when reading posts like yours that go into so much detail.
I appreciate your love though. Maybe I?m too new still.

[The15thMember]

Van , as much as I hate to admit it, I cannot read. I don?t want a huge complicated hobby in bees-
I want to control beetles/ test for mites and expand/ contract boxes when necessary.
I really feel less than when reading posts like yours that go into so much detail.
I appreciate your love though. Maybe I?m too new still.

Salty, don't you worry about it at all.  Beekeeping can be as sciency and technologically advanced as you want it to be.  Scientific minds like Van and I like to think about the data and the extra interesting information because we think it's fun.  But if that's not your thing, don't sweat it.  All the information can be intimidating at the beginning, so just keep it simple for now.  You just concentrate on answering the questions you have, and you'll learn all you need to know to keep your bees happy and healthy.   

[van from Arkansas]

Salty, I have thought about your approach to bees, I like the old saying KEEP IT SIMPLE.  I understand that method, a relax way to enjoy raising the honey bees.  I started with honeybees in the 1960?s, old fert I am.  I will admit a fear of mine: a fear of not keeping up with the world and becoming set in my ways avoiding change, not wanting to learn.  I will eliminate this fear or concern may be a better expression by learning the new wiz bang technology.  My goal or plan as HP would text, is to improve, benefit the bees.  So keep your honey bee plan simple Salty, that is beautiful.  So Salty, I accept your simple approach to bees with appreciation.

I am just measuring weight, temperatures, sounds, and humidity.

Me, well I am going all in with technology, going to learn the ropes for the honey bees, sounds like the Australia chaps already have a good head start on me.  I am impressed with their technology, viewing their hive on a cell phone anywhere in the world sounds cool to me!!!  Knowing hive weight alone is such a useful tool as explained above by Beavo.  Thank you chaps down under for the encouragement.

Member, thank you Lady for your nice text, supportive you are.
Cheers
.

[Beelab]

I keep it simple, totally. All the sensors that give me graphs online are just to keep my nerdy curiosity going. It?s a hobby so to say. Goes well with the science of bee speak. 
Only had the technology for 2 years and still learning what it indicates.
Confirming: one does not need that technology to bee an awesome beekeeper.

I have learned a lot through it all though. One day I put it all together and let you know.

[van from Arkansas]

Beelab, good post.  The scale is the most valuable toy/tool info to me.  I know my hives are up to weight for winter.  Also I am seeing daily hive weight gain, 2 pounds a day,  so I know the Fall flow is still going.

The hive temp and humidity are just for curiosity.  By next summer, hopefully the hive temp and humidity will provide useful info pertaining to queen laying.  This spring I will be watching closely.  A steady rise in temp will tell me brood is in the hive.

Make no mistake, for now, the hive sensors are just plain ol fun, providing enjoyment for me.  I think it is totally cool to push a button and look at weight then realize my hive is gaining, adding more honey.  So I know I don?t need to feed, that is for sure.

Have fun with the honeybees everybody!🐝
Van

[Michael Bush]

I have a number of brood minders.  If they would let me press one button and download all of them, or better, just ping for them once every ten minutes and dowload them all automatically, then I would use it more.  As it is, I go to the beeyard to work and I have to click on each one individually and then tell it to download and wait for that one to finish to do the next one.  I can only stay in the beeyard until I overheat and wasting a half an hour downloading data is not my idea of productivity.

[TheHoneyPump]

We have some broodminders also.

Michael,
Fyi, broodminder does have another app called Broodminder Apiary.  It downloads/uploads all the devices within range at once, a batch process.
The app downloads data from the devices them pushes it (syncs) to you broodmind account on the internet.  You can then view at your computer later at mybroodminder.com
The Apiary app is a data pull and sync only.  A quick way to grab the data by one tap. However it does not have any charting or display features on the phone.  For display on the phone you  have to use the main broodminder app.
I also hate having to read/sync each device individually. Waste of precious time.  I also hate looking at the cumbersome charts on the phone. Hence I use the Apiary app to quickly grab the data and I use my computer to look at it later in the evening.

If a person was able to put only one device on their hive, it should be a scale.  An experienced beekeeper can infer alot of beehive colony dynamics from the hourly weight changes and knowing the weather trends at the time.

Hope that helps!

[van from Arkansas]

HP: If a person was able to put only one device on their hive, it should be a scale.  An experienced beekeeper can infer alot of beehive colony dynamics from the hourly weight changes and knowing the weather trends at the time.

AGREED 100%.

[Nock]

Does it only use one load cell? 

[Michael Bush]

>Fyi, broodminder does have another app called Broodminder Apiary.  It downloads/uploads all the devices within range at once, a batch process.

Thanks.  I need to find that app.

[van from Arkansas]

Does it only use one load cell?

One load cell for each hive scale.  The data is transferred by NFC to my iPhone.

Van

[Oldbeavo]

We use one load cell that transmits on the cell phone network. We only get one weight per day at 4:30 am.
The reason for this is all bees are in the hive and we get a comparable weight. Daily weights are good as it tells you what happened in the last 24 hrs and combined with weather will tell you what the hive is doing.
Our hives are 160 mile away at present so the fine data of hourly etc can't be acted on. We want a trend of what the nectar is up to or are the hives filling up and need attention. At present they are at about 100lb as a single deep brood and a deep super.