Open source solar honey bee hive monitoring system

BeeMoS: Open source solar honey bee hive monitoring system

Goal:

Provide an open source device that remotely monitors key variables related to honey bee hives in a non invasive manner in order to know bees better, and to give relevant information to beekeepers. We plan to make the system self-reliant by using solar energy so that it works in remote locations not connected to the electrical grid. In the long term, we would like to collect and share data from several apiaries on a public server to conduct large scale analyses.

Who?

The project was launched in early April 2017 by Olivier Emery, biologist and PhD student in Life Sciences studying honey bee gut bacteria (who also owns 3-4 hives). Luc Patiny from the open source Bioreactor project joined the project early on and is the driving force in the design of the Arduino-based PCBs that will be used, with the mainboard largely inspired from those created for the bioreactor. Tristan Brauchli is a PhD student at EPFL involved in the management of the school's apiary. He also joined the team early and is involved in the design of an environmental sensor. All members participate in elaborating and reviewing the guidelines of the project. The BeeMoS team is looking for interested people to join the project, and in particular persons with a background in electronics.

How?

By using Arduino-based microcontrollers to take measures and transmit them wirelessly. One key variable is the weight of the hive for which we need to be build an affordable scale capable of withstanding 150-200kg. We're also interested in measuring how many bees come in and out of the hive as a proxy for foraging activity, as well as the temperature and humidity inside the hive and environmental variables (temperature, humidity, wind speed...). The exact approaches of the project still need to be defined, but we'll keep you updated :)