Unfortunately, like many of you, I do not have access to a bee hives. I have no prior knowledge of bee care and have relied on information found through internet research. I thought it will be a good start to share my initial idea discuss it until we have the boards to have hands on experiment.
Here are some of the ideas I have found.
The weight of the hive can be useful. If bees are producing honey in the season, the weight is expected to rise. However, if the weight is decreasing unexpectedly, it is a warning that bees may need some food or the colony is losing its members.
Temperature should be conserved inside the hive. ChatGPT answer this question like "The ideal temperature for a hive is between 95-100°F (35-38°C). This temperature range allows the bees to easily move around the hive and properly care for the brood. If the temperature inside the hive drops below this range, the bees may struggle to keep the brood warm and healthy. On the other hand, if the temperature inside the hive becomes too hot, the bees may become stressed and less productive."
Similarly, humidity also should be at certain range around 40-60%. If humidity is too high, there may be problems like mold. It is also indicator that there are lots of dead bees inside the hive(Physics for beekeepers: mold in a beehive).
As temperature, humidity, and weight are crucial factors for the well-being of a bee colony, my initial task is to install sensors to measure these parameters both inside and outside the hive. Hopefully, this data provides valuable insights about what is happening in the hive. My initial idea is establish threshold values for the minimum and maximum temperature, humidity, and weight, as well as for the difference between the values measured inside and outside the hive. The speed of change and its direction is also need to be investigated. If there are multiple hives, comparing them also can be informative too. As I learn more insights about bees, I can modify the system.
I also plan to include some audio processing. Still don't have what I am gonna do but after completing the sensory part, I will dedicate time for that. The sound provides number of bees, situation of the pupal stage, and information about the queen (Acoustic Analysis of Bee Behavior). My initial thought is doing frequency analysis as it sounds easy at first stage.
The final stage can be about communication. This actually depends on where hive(s) is/are located. If you have only one hive in your garden, a Wi-Fi or cabled connection works. But if you have distributed hives in a rural area then you may need to think other RF communications protocols like LoRa.
It looks like building the system will not be as difficult as signal processing and make inference from the data. I need to learn more about the bees so the plan may change on the go. If you have any suggestion feel free to share.
