Bee cam

[Ade'sBee's]

Has anyone got any advice on how to set up a camera on the entrance to one of my hives?Where to buy and how to set up etc etc.Was hoping to have my first 2 hives in my garden but moving in a couple of weeks and new house only has a small garden so hives being sited about 1 mile away.

 

[trulli1]

http://www.sysonby.com/beecam/

Not much help with your questions, but this is what these guys have done...

 

[Mike a]

Same has been done here as well.

http://www.sugarcreekorchard.com/Cameras.htm
The same person also created this excellent time lapse movie of approximately 11,000 pictures over a week showing a colony building combs.
http://www.viddler.com/explore/Garlydog/videos/1

 

[BKF Admin]

The person who runs that webcam is a member of the forum.
I am sure he will give advice if he reads the thread.

 

[RoofTops]

If you are trying to set up a camera on some bees a few miles away then this is going to be a lot more difficult that a setup in the garden. Assuming there is electricity then an outdoor Webcam (such as http://www.camsecure.co.uk/Camsecure_Weatherproof_Webcam.html) could be linked to a PC and the PC then linked through into wireless broadband. The webcam probably comes with the software to hook it into the internet.

Biggest problem will be security as the camera alone would be very attractive to thieves. It is fairly safe to set this sort of thing up in the garden but in a wood or field somewhere I would be very wary, unless you can somehow make it secure inside a building.

 

[hedgerow pete]

i would use a simple web cam with a housing over it so you dont have to worry about it getting damaged, then feed it directly into you computer and record it durring the day when they are busy other wise you will fill your memory up with a video of a hive enterance doing nothing

to set some thing up away from try these ideas

set up your web camera into a normal home tower pc as they are the cheapest, you only need the screen, key board, and mouse to install it after that take them home . power can come via a car battery and inverter or bypass the power unit and in put the cars dc power into the computer

this will get you recording then either swap the recording disks or set it up with a wire less dongle and then access it on the web

 

[Hebeegeebee]

I had an IP camera which worked on my own network in the house but bugger me could I get Network Addrerss Translation to work so the pictures could be seen on the interweb thingy.
(Because most home connections are not on a fixed IP address, software has to convert this somehow each time a connection is made. Eventually I gave up).

ALSO I am on a slow broadband connection (2 meg) so the pictures would be slow and of poor resolution. The upload speed is much slower than the download speed.

 

[Ely]

If the camera isn't design for outdoor use there maybe a problem with damp in the mornings. If you go somewhere like pc world I'm sure they could give you the best advice. You don't necessarily have to buy from them as they are pretty expensive

 

[Mike a]

Another option if you dont have mains power is one of these.

http://www.scottcountry.co.uk/products_detail.asp?productID=2549

Picture and link is just an example but these units can take 1000's of pictures and store them on an SD memory card every minute or two. Just a question of having a spare memory card to put in it every week and then you can compile the pictures into a time lapse movie. The only down side is getting it in the hive or adding a viewing window and setting up the focal length.