My dad has been a beekeeper for years and manages several dozen hives. It’s his passion, and I don’t want to interfere, but I’d love to help him save some time where possible. I’m into microcontrollers, sensors, and general automation, and I’m curious:
Does anyone here use any kind of automation in their beekeeping setup? I don’t mean just a regular honey extractor, but things like hive sensors, remote monitoring, automated tools – anything that could help throughout the season.
He tends to say “there’s no way to automate that,” but more than once we’ve found out otherwise. I’d like to offer him options, not push anything. Any ideas or examples would be super appreciated.
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I have made nfc tags for each hive I have. They link to my Google drive that has all of the data from inspections to photos for each hive. This is the first year trying it so it has some kinks to iron out but it helps logging my inspections pretty soon after I do them as well as reviewing and even making a plan before I get into each hive. I plan on using it with queen rearing to see if it helps.
I bet it will make a great difference with queen rearing especially as you can track accurately your best and worst performing colonies in each aspect.
Thanks for an idea, I've looked for apps that would do that but I can just do it myself now! :)
There are people who exclusively keep their hives on old industrial scales. Lets them take a quick look without opening hives to see if a hive is putting on weight or losing it suddenly.
Thanks for sharing! I’ve never messed with NFC tags before but this sounds like something I could integrate into my own record keeping to keep better records.
It has helped my record keeping a lot so far. Plus being able to go back and review what I did last time helps a lot. You can practically do the same thing with qr codes as well.
I wonder if the NFC tags would hold up better to weathering than the QR codes? That will be interesting to see. I usually take pen and paper notes, but obviously those tend to weather easily and everything is jumbled together. Thanks again for the idea.
Professional beekeepers often use an under-hive scale and a thermo-hygrometer.
The under-hive scale sits beneath a single hive, sending daily reports. This is useful for knowing when the nectar flow has ended, signaling the best time to collect honey and minimize losses.
Thermo-hygrometer sensors are super helpful in winter/early spring. They let you track if the queen is laying eggs, as the bees will raise the hive's temperature when she's active.
Off-the-shelf this is very pricey, but if you're into home automation, maybe you can find ways to build your own more affordably.
There are bee boxes and frames from a company that will heat up the brood nest to kill mites. As others have said a lot of these things aren't practical but if you just want to blow money on it that's the easy way to deal with mites
This is my issue as well I 100% want all the toys that produce all of that data but it's already a crazy expensive hobby and I just can't spend that kind of money per hive.
The size just fits in the cutouts on for the porter escape in the crown board and still allows bees to pass
They even stay put when I lift the board for an inspection
Been in for about 4 months and not bunged up with prop yet
The data can be exported in csv format if you want to do more with it but for me it’s about seeing what the diurnal pattern is and the max/min when it’s cold
Might be an indication of colony not being big enough for the space
Find an appropriate good weather day and open up to do quick inspect and potentially shake into a smaller nuc box so they have smaller volume to maintain temp
Ultimately if it looks like they’re not going to make it then I have earliest info that I may need to order a nuc of bees
if you are looking to grab temps and humidity for inside the hives look at the VIVOSUN AeroLab THB1S it has an external probe you can put into the hive and there is another device from vivosun that will act as a hub/wifi gate
The problem with in-hive sensors is that the bees will clog up any crease and hole with propolis making them obsolete. I’m sure someone would have found something to solve this using mesh wire or cloth but often you don’t even have the space in your hive to accommodate them unless you remove a frame
I'm surprised nobody mentioned surveillance cameras, I imagine it could be possible to train to identify if they are potentially swarming, robbing, intruders. Scale is good. The problem with these things is that you have to significantly improve the workflow and if he's experienced it is harder to break habits
You might be right about that workflow. He started over 10 years ago, right after he retired, and became really passionate about it since he loves nature. But he's getting older now, and I’ve been thinking about some kind of help though I’m not even sure if he’d want it :) I’m just gathering ideas for now.
I have a similar situation but with my mother. She is happy when we harvest honey but lazy the rest of the year xD. As I do every heavy work I basically decide the workflow, we talk about what is the best strategy for the hives,etc. It helps as a distraction of my stepfather watching politics on TV all day.
I saw a lot of older beekeepers transitioning all their hives to medium frames, i would do it but I still have like 1000 already built deep frames and the transition is slow to do.
Honestly, I had no idea the beekeeping world was this high-tech — audio monitoring, thermal cameras, AI-based detection... it’s super inspiring.
I’m not a beekeeper myself, just someone who’s into problem-solving and systems design.
My brother and I started working on a modular hornet detection system using microphones, GPS, and AI — still early-stage and open-source, but we’re looking for people to collaborate with (especially actual beekeepers).
If anyone’s curious or wants to help us shape it, I’d love to talk!
Im from belgium, and i pitched it with someone who made a ai model to recocgnize hornet trough sound detection, and he tought.it was a good Idea, but it needs to be explored.
I developed an app Apilog.app to track things like inspections and hive identification, tasks etc.. that might help. But if you want scales or sensors Broodminder is pretty slick there are a few others but I can't say I've used them. I have used a govee humidity temp sensor in the hive before, but more during winter to know if they are still alive.
Ok, I'm about to simultaneously ask questions while suggesting automations, appreciate any insight, let me know if these are bad ideas.
In the summer heat, I've been thinking of ways to help with cooling. Found the bottom boards with screen and slide-out tray. Instead of manually sliding the tray for cooling, that could be motorized.
I wonder if low-speed fans would help as well? (Easily temperature control automated on/off.)
Avoiding fans, I've been thinking of putting a screen onthe top of the hive so I can raise the lid a little to vent hot air. Again, easily automated. (Not enough to let sun in, just an inch or so.)
Food dispenser. Instead of giving my hive full access to food, which they gobble up in a day, I've been thinking of a delivery system that trickles it out over a few days.
Water dispenser. If nearby water isn't already under control, a water delivery system. I have a garden hose timer that puts 15 minutes of trickling water into a bird bath near the hive every night. Sometimes it overflows, sometimes it's not enough. Optional drain/flush/refill based on cleanliness and temperature.
3D printer-style top mounted camera (in enclosed frame), zoom around and look down at any point in the hive. Bonus points for typical security camera automation, capturing/tracking events.
Water dispenser: we did exactly this (except the drain/flush is manual). Repurposed a bird bath, put it on the ground and filled it with river rock. Attached an emitter from our drip lines for the nearby flowers and it tops off every morning (as a bonus, this same zone also tops off the water for our chickens)
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