Electronic Hive Monitoring- Experiences?

[a+beekeeper]

Hello forum readers,

I currently am working with a team on a collaborative project to develop an electrical hive health monitoring system to increase awareness of honey-bee related health issues. Our project is currently being funded and further considered by Analog Devices, Inc., which is a publicly traded company looking to participate in more community projects and to take an active role in conservation of the honey bee.

To that end, we have created a survey that relates to fine tuning and development of our hive health monitoring system. If you would be willing to further discuss this survey or—even better—to provide anecdotal experiences related to hive management, that would be greatly appreciated.

The survey can be accessed here (you will have to copy this into your browser (with https:// [, enter] goo.gl/forms/zGpA4451shzbFUJm2 )

Thanks for your help in advance!

Brant Hoffman

 

[Little John]

Hive environment monitoring is already well covered, of course: temperature, humidity, hive weight etc.

But a hive health monitoring system - now that should be interesting ...
Main hive health issues are Varroa (of course) & SHB in the US. Nosema levels would be useful to know - but can't begin to imagine how AD would monitor any of those - it'd be interesting to find out.
LJ

 

[Vcator]

I was interested in hive monitoring too. As Little John inferred, there are several systems already out there and have been around a while, but a common factor is cost - simply way too expensive vs the perceived benefit for the average beekeeper. In my limited research it seems to be the domain of techy beekeepers with money to spare, and scientific research benefitting from a grant. I'd be interested to hear how you get on, and what your system does vs the other systems already out there.