Remote detection of the swarming of honey bee colonies by single-point temperature monitoring
Authors: Aleksejs Zacepins, Armands Kviesis, Egils Stalidzans, Marta Liepniece, Jurijs Meitalovs
Journal: Biosystems Engineering, Volume 148, August 2016, Pages 76-80
Highlights
Information from a single temperature sensor is sufficient for swarming detection.
Changes in colony temperature can be observed up to 20 min before take-off.
One temperature measurement per 60 s is sufficient for swarming detection.
During warm-up before swarming colony temperature increases by 1.5°–3.4 °C.
Abstract
Precision Beekeeping (or Precision Apiculture) aims to help beekeepers monitor bee colonies remotely and identify different colony states including deviant behaviour. One monitoring target is the remote identification of bee colony swarming since this is one of the factors that can significantly reduce profitability.
To identify temperature dynamics and its patterns for swarming detection, ten colonies were constantly monitored for four months from 1 May to 31 August 2015. Nine swarms were observed during experiments.
During the warm-up stage, in the last 10–20 min before take-off, a temperature rise by 1.5–3.4 °C from typical range 34–35 °C to range 37–38 °C was registered by a temperature sensor placed above the polyethylene foil covering the upper hive body under the pillow. For all swarming events it was common that a bee colony needs a relatively small amount of time (from 8 to 20 min) to warm up before take-off.
It was concluded that a single temperature sensor above the bee nest combined with a proposed decision support algorithm can be used for automatic remote detection of swarming at take-off stage.
Hong, Wei & Baohua, Xu & Chi, Xuepeng & Cui, Xuepei & Yan, Yinfa & Li, Tongyang. (2020). Long-term and Extensive Monitoring for Bee Colonies based on Internet of Things
IEEE Internet of Things Journal. PP. 1-1. 10.1109/JIOT.2020.2981681. The pollination during bees’ foraging is vital to continue species on the earth. However, the losses of bee colonies are being more and more extensive problems in the recent decades, which have seriously impacted the global environment but have not receive enough attention from human beings yet. Based on widely investigating detectable features, this paper presents an IoT-based system for long-term and extensive monitoring of bee colonies. Multiple features including temperature and humidity inside the hive, bee combs’ weight, bee colony’s sounds and number of bees passing through the hive entrance can be detected hourly by the proposed system. Further, a four-month practical monitoring indicates that the system can continuously operate without human intervention and the data can reveal the activity and growth of bee colonies. Especially, a swarming activity was successfully observed by the data, which shows a significant potential to recognize various activities of bee colonies. The highlights of this system are the capabilities of detecting diverse features, transmitting data wirelessly and that with a strong self-support ability. Because of these advantages, the system can operate for an exceeding long time without maintenance, which will largely benefit the system deployment in the field. In the visible future, this system could contribute to the study of bee’s behavior and the development of precision beekeeping.
Interessant finde ich, dass sie Sensoren gleich mit auf dem board sind, besonders sound / Mic und etwas um das Flugloch zu überwachen.
Sound-Analyse machen sie auch! Sie fanden einen deutlichen circadianen Rhythmus. Hätte ich so nicht erwartet, besonders zu Zeiten am frühen Morgen und Abend, Bienen die bei einem vollen Volk nach Hause kommen?
Und was ist das mit dem akustischen Schwamindukatoren um 9 Uhr?
Das mit dem Sound finde ich auch spannend. Das Mikro ist ja anscheinend nur von draußen da dran - scheint wohl zu reichen.
Schade das nirgends steht, wie sie die Bienen zählen. In der Tabelle steht nur ‘CAP’. Die Steckerleiste auf der Platine deutet auf viele digitale Eingänge hin. Vermutlich also viele Lichtschranken.
<1mA Stromverbrauch ist auch nicht schlecht. Trotzdem vermute ich mal, das mit den Solarzellen in der Anordnung das bei uns nicht reichen würde. Da der Stock aber etwa auf dem Breitengrad von Saudi-Arabien aufgestellt wurde, gehts wohl.
