Hive monitoring - DIY

[busybeephilip]

This little heater is winging its way to me as I type sublimox heater.jpg

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi bbp is that a 240V bit off a sublimox ?
how does it work ?
what plans have you for using it ?
I thought the Orient was the land of mystery not NI

[busybeephilip]

Yep, your right ! Available in the UK from RS. It heats to a max of some 340C but I'm planning to use a K type thermocouple to control and set the heat, don't know how hot a real sublimox gets to but trial and error will sort it out. I've got a stainless steel container and just trying to source a block of heat resistant plastic for the O ring lid.

[Greengage]

Back to the hive monitoring,Looks like some students are going to make one for me, Their task to identify some key variables that influennce the health of a beehive and develop a system to measure these variables over time, the seperate variables should be combined into a holistic model that indicates the health of the hive and the likley yield of honey for the season this information ashould be available over the internet viewed from a remote beehive.
So Ive asked them for something that measures temperature outside and inside the hive, this will indicate if they are clustering if temp it below 13deg C, if their is no brood present so good time for oxalic acid treatment, below 8deg bees will be dropping off outside cluster and dying, weight of hive to indicate stores and spring build up.Tilt switch to indicate if hive has fallen over due to poor weather of something moree sinister.

[The Drone Ranger]

Back to the hive monitoring,Looks like some students are going to make one for me, Their task to identify some key variables that influennce the health of a beehive and develop a system to measure these variables over time, the seperate variables should be combined into a holistic model that indicates the health of the hive and the likley yield of honey for the season this information ashould be available over the internet viewed from a remote beehive.
So Ive asked them for something that measures temperature outside and inside the hive, this will indicate if they are clustering if temp it below 13deg C, if their is no brood present so good time for oxalic acid treatment, below 8deg bees will be dropping off outside cluster and dying, weight of hive to indicate stores and spring build up.Tilt switch to indicate if hive has fallen over due to poor weather of something moree sinister.

Top man GG
I can get back to my cat detector in the meanwhile

[The Drone Ranger]

Yep, your right ! Available in the UK from RS. It heats to a max of some 340C but I'm planning to use a K type thermocouple to control and set the heat, don't know how hot a real sublimox gets to but trial and error will sort it out. I've got a stainless steel container and just trying to source a block of heat resistant plastic for the O ring lid.

Good luck with that project the bbp
170C might be a good starting point
There might be a way to use the units own resistance to give you rough temperature control
Hall effect current sensor ?
Just guessing haven't tried it
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-...Effect-Sensor/

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi DR
I've been toying with two solutions to sensor placement. The first is to cut a small notch out of the top of the hive body and run the cables in from there ... the advantage here is that I should be able to remove the crownboard and rummage about with disturbing everything. The alternative I was considering was a sheet of Correx (what else) with holes or flaps at particular positions I might be interested in placing probes. These could be lowered down and then held in place on top of the Correx with the inevitable strip of gaffer or duct tape. By marking the cable with a pen or strip of tape I can lower it vertically to the centre of the brood nest.

I'm concerned that solution 1 might have the cables dropping out of place unless they're attached to the top bars. I currently favour the Correx sheet.

I've generally found that if it's a choice between something else and Correx then the correct answer is Correx. This conclusion is influenced by having acres of the stuff. I'm going to build a Snelgrove-type board out of it shortly. I already use it for bait hive floors, roofs and landing boards. I stupidly bought black, rather than a mixed pack. I'd like a sheet of white to make some more Varroa boards.

Could it be done with contactless infrared sensors?
I was looking at those and how you can make a small metal shield that narrows the field of measurement
I was thinking mount them in line with the bee space on the underside of crownboard then the whole thing lifts off in one go
https://www.adafruit.com/products/1296

I don't know if you had a minute to check out the Simblee thats a bluetooth device that I think has possibilities
But at the moment there is only a communication app for iPhone and its 3.3vlogic and a bit dear

Apart from that though its perfect BLE is low energy just a few milliamps when on
Chip programmed via the Arduino IDE and sending data to smartphone up to about 10m
The app can see 8 Simblee's at a time so a quick walk through the apiary gathers all the info needed
Works with Correx of all types

[The Drone Ranger]

Spent a couple of days fiddling with temperature sensors ,wifi and an android phone
So far so good I can read the temperature on 4 sensors and send the data to an android phone
Long way to go but a bit encouraging

Must get gwizzie's advice on video he can track a single bee across a heather moor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCub...EzHuE8daEqdR45

If you look hard you can see the screen is scrolling the values of the 4 sensors one after another in both Fahrenheit and Celsius meanwhile the phone gets sent the temperature of the current one in Celsius

[The Drone Ranger]

Beating_A_Dead_Horse.GIF

[fatshark]

If you look hard you can see the screen is scrolling the values of the 4 sensors one after another in both Fahrenheit and Celsius meanwhile the phone gets sent the temperature of the current one in Celsius

And if you listen carefully you can hear "Take it Easy" by the Eagles.

Lookin' good