AUTOMATED SYSTEM FOR BEE COLONY WEIGHT MONITORING

Abstract

Real time, continuous and remote monitoring of the honeybee colonies with
application of information and communication technologies (ICT) is becoming
increasingly frequent in industry and in a scientific research. Combination of ICT
and beekeeping led to the development of the Precision Beekeeping approach.
Successful implementation of the Precision Beekeeping system includes
development of the bee colony monitoring hardware solution and computer
software for data collection and further analysis. This paper describes developed
and implemented bee colony monitoring unit for weight and temperature
monitoring. Bee colony weight is one of the key metrics of the strength of a
colony. Changes in weight can reflect the productivity rate of the colony, as well as
its health and state. Developed monitoring system is based on Raspberry Pi Zero W
single board computer with several connected sensors for bee colony temperature
and environmental parameter monitoring. Weight is measured using single point
load cell with possibility to measure weight up to 200kg, which is enough for the
beehive measurements. Data transfer from the remote bee colony is provided by
the external 3G router. For data storage and analysis cloud-based data warehouse is
developed. Collected data is accessible in the web system with user friendly
interface for data visualisation and reporting. Within this research scale calibration
process is described and accuracy of the weighting is evaluated and possible
challenges are discussed. Described monitoring system is developed within the
Horizon 2020 project SAMS, which is funded by the European Union within the
H2020-ICT-39-2016-2017 call. To find out more visit the project website
https://sams-project.eu/.