Published by : International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)

http://www.ijert.org ISSN: 2278-0181

Vol. 9 Issue 06, June-2020

Monitoring of Honey Bee Hiving System using

Sensor Networks
Sachin K 1, Gagana M. R 2, Heema Rubab 3, Jalaja G S 4, Jayanand J 5
Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering
2-5
Eight Semester UG Students, AIET, Moodbidri, Karnataka, India.
1
Assistant Professor, AIET, Moodbidri, Karnataka, India.

Abstract- Honey bees have throughout history been a keystone for the beekeeper. These two improvements made beekeeping
species, pollinating an estimated 70 percent of all plants and easier and more efficient to product. The bees are normally
underpinning some 30 percent of the global food supply. Because kept in hives, consisting of “houses”. Inside the hive there are
the viability of beehives is a critical predictor of the planet’s frames with cells of wax. The wax is a product of the bees. In
future health and agricultural sustainability, reports of a
precipitous decline in the number of colonies around the world
a cell the bees can store pollen, honey or have a new bee
have stirred considerable alarm. Since most of the prior produced. The bees are produced by the queen, which lay eggs
contributions are focusing on data gathering, the approach to in cells, and then the worker bees are feeding the egg to
focus on the user’s needs is central to take next steps in the field become a bee in 21 days.
of using sensors for Beekeeping. Beekeepers can be divided into
beekeepers having bees as a hobbies and beekeepers that are The high proportion of non-professional beekeepers and the
professional, making a living of the beekeeping. Visualization and number of colonies per beekeeper were the only common
availability of data are key questions for user friendliness. Since characteristics at European level. This fact need to be taken
there are no standards for measurement data from beehives, into consideration, that the main group when it comes to
there are different manufacturers/contributors that have their
own system. If a standard format would be available, it would
beekeepers are not mandatory to make a living from their
make it easier to interconnect different devices for visualization beekeeping. Today beehives are placed not only on the
in single user interface. If data is available as streams in traditional countryside, but also in the cities. The reason could
standardized application program interface (API) a user can use probably be that people are becoming more aware of the
whatever solution found for visualization. The majorities of positive side of honeybees.
beekeepers that non-professional, they will probably want to have
the “relation to their bees”, using too much technology is A main part of beekeeping is the manual inspection of
probably wanted, like having robots doing the actual beekeeping beehives, a “craftsmanship” where the person doing the
work. activities must understand the nature, what to observe and what
Keywords- Application Program Interface (API).
to actions to take. Reading books, papers can helpful,
especially for understanding, but when it comes to observation,
I. INTRODUCTION judgments, comparison, and actions, experience will help the
Honey bees are important for pollination of crops. Honeybees beekeeper to do a better job. The manual inspection of a
produce different functionalities in our ecosystem, where the beehive is assumed to be done by a beekeeper or a group of
two main outcomes are the pollination of crops and honey. beekeepers wearing protective clothes. The aim of a visit to the
There are other products from the bees including Royal Jelly, beehive, are observation, probably some decision-making
Pollen and Propolis that are produced by bees. Bees are from observations, and some actions. Depending on the time
important for the global food supply, as the quantity and of year, there are different activities in the beehive, also the
quality of food are increased by pollination, and honeybees are local weather conditions affect the activities. Beekeepers are
a major pollinator. Crops, including fruits like strawberries are normally doing manual inspections of their hives, to check
dependent on pollination from bees. The products that are weight, health etc. To observe the bee health, the reproduction
produced by bees need to be harvested and handled from the is always interesting. So, checking for eggs, pupae and cells of
beehives, normally done by a beekeeper. The beekeeper either bees are central when it comes to observation. The number of
keeps bees as a hobby or as a profession where the outcome is eggs/larvae/pupae need to be put in context of the time of year,
important. the natures current situation and the specific beehives specific
situation. If there are eggs, a queen is present, if the pupae are
Since many years humans have tried to harvest honey from the “normal” it's a mated queen laying eggs. If you don't have fresh
bees, a proof of activities are old cave paintings approximately eggs during active season, there are probably a problem, then
8000-9000 years old. The other technical improvement is the you need to locate a queen visually, and probably take some
queen excluder, which makes a “barrier” between the area action to provide a new queen. Another thing to observe is, if
where the queen lay eggs, and the other side of the barrier there are pollen and nectar present in the nature, one could
where only worker bees smaller can pass. The queen excluder expect a lively colony, with many bees, much honey, some of
makes boxes with only honey, and no eggs, easier to handle it already. The weight of the hive is interesting during the
whole year, are there enough food during low season, and how

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Published by : International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
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Vol. 9 Issue 06, June-2020

much honey can I expect? During winter time, a beekeeper can OBJECTIVES
feel the heat under the top of the roof separated by plastic to ▪ To know the weight of the honey and free from
avoid stinging, which indicates a healthy society. human intervention.
▪ To know the temperature inside the honey comb.
MOTIVATION ▪ To know the humidity inside the honey comb.
• The motivation for doing this project is to design an ▪ To check whether the Queen bee is present or
automation system for apiculture field.
II.LITERATURE REVIEW
• This project proposes a new simpler framework for Anand et al [1] Honey bee holding is a deep rooted practice of
the raw data such as brood temperature, brood holding colony states for acquiring nectar and other apiary
humidity, ambient temperature and weight of the hive based absolutely items and is in fact named as apiculture. This
can also be accessed from the cloud server by the paper proposed a gadget that identifies swarming the
beekeepers. utilization of two remarkable methodologies. The first being,
utilizing sound-related assessment of the sound created by
PROBLEM STATEMENT utilizing the honey bees all through swarming. What's more,
• Farmer has to go near hiving to check their the subsequent methodology, recognition by methods for
productivity like weight of honey, temperature and following microclimatic changes and varieties inside the
humidity etc. weight. Once swarming is detected the gadget is designed to
• Whenever apiculturist is going near to the honey alert the apiculturist by cloud services. The measurements
hiving, there is 3% of the honey bee will be lost. together with brood temperature, brood humidity, surrounding
temperature and weight of the hive can likewise be gotten to
• If this process happens daily there will be loss in
from the cloud server with the guide of the honey bee
productivity.
attendants, subsequently making the colony following
• Repetitive tasks are not comfort with manpower as
procedure free from human intercession.
shown in Fig 1.5.
Daniel M. Lofaro et al [2] suggested that honey bees are a
• During a winter season there will be destruction of significant piece of our reverberation framework. Pollinators,
honeycomb structure due to formation of hosts on comprising of honey bees, help in any event 30% of the world's
honeycomb hive in turn there will be loss in yields and 90% of the world's wild intends to flourish through
productivity as shown in Fig 1.4. cross-fertilization. Studies show that among 2015 and 2016
beekeepers lost 44% of honey bee settlements over the winter
that is up around 10% from the previous decade. Foundations
for this decrease is associated to the general hive wellbeing.
The more sound the hive the more noteworthy likely it's far to
keep on existing the winter. Current time directs people check
the hives for Varro Mite pervasions, awful dampness levels,
and diverse telling side effects of an undesirable hive. These
checks are obtrusive to the honey bee provinces and just
happen a few times each year. Foundations for this decrease is
associated to the general hive wellbeing. The more sound the
hive the more noteworthy likely it's far to keep on existing the
winter.
Fig.1.4 Loss in production
Zacepins et al [3] recommended that honey bee wintering
process is one of the natural procedures, which these days
might be checked and controlled the utilization of the data
innovation, control strategies and devices. Control and
following of such method is truly entangled and no longer an
insignificant errand, since direct of the natural gadget, natural
items and their reaction to human mediation is erratic. To
entire this undertaking it's far imperative to assemble complex
control machine engineering with numerous subsystems and
components. The automatized framework engineering
proposed through the creators is created to upgrade the honey
bee wintering process and to consolidate realities
advancements into this technique. The machine is
uncommonly utilized for singular bee state checking and
Fig.1.5 Repetitive tasks with manpower control.
Edwards Murphy et al [4] Checking the sounds discharged
with the assistance of honey bees for the term of an apiary is a
basic side interest for beekeepers to frame positive that their
honey bee provinces stay solid and to augment productiveness.

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Vol. 9 Issue 06, June-2020

A one of a kind conceptive event called "swarming",

incorporates the flight of a sovereign with an outsized a piece
of the hive masses. Swarming are frequently recognized
through sound, and whenever permitted to happen unchecked
may result during a drop by means of hive efficiency or, in
extreme cases, settlement demise. A method for effectively
alarming the manager that such an occasion is inevitable would
asset in protective the bumble bee populace and diminishing
beekeeping costs. During this paper, an answer the utilization
of off the rack Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) time with low
power sign handling to show settlement sound, likewise
because of the reality the temperature and mugginess of the
hive inside is introduced.

Rodriguez et al [5] proposed an acknowledgment framework

for dust bearing honey bees from motion pictures of the
passageway of the hive is introduced. This pc vision
undertaking can be a key part for the mechanized observing of
honey bees with an end goal to get large scope data of their
scavenging behavior and task specialization. A few methods
are contemplated for this task, alongside gauge classifiers,
Fig.1.1 Block diagram of proposed system
shallow Convolution Neural Networks, and more profound
systems from the writing. The trial differentiate depends on a
substitute dataset of depictions of bumble bees that was • NodeMCU with the ESP8266. BMP180, DHT11 and
physically explained for the nearness of dust. The proposed the load cell are the sensors used in the system to
technique, upheld Convolution Neural Networks is appeared monitor temperature, humidity.
to beat the contrary procedures in expressions of exactness. • An electrolyte is used to pick up the sound produced
Detailed examination of the outcomes and accordingly the by the bees that is used for auditory analysis.
influence of the building parameters, similar with the impact • The NodeMCU based on ESP8266 was used as the
of devoted shading based data increase, offer bits of wireless mesh node.
knowledge into the best approach to apply the method to the • The cloud server of choice is BLYNK an open source
objective application. IOT cloud server.
III METHODOLOGY • This is implemented on star network topology and
hence made bridging between the mesh and a star
The NodeMCU based on ESP8266 was used as the wireless network which is complex and non-trivial task.
mesh node. BLYNK server is an open source Internet of things • The NodeMCU RF transceiver supports the
(IOT) cloud server. The microclimatic parameters within the IEEE802.11b/g/n standards, with which the mesh
hive are measured by DHT11 sensor, whereas the temperature network is implemented.
right outside the hive is measured by BMP180.The system is • The distance between each node can go up 90 meters
proposed to design the monitoring of parameters that indicate with a line of sight. When not in line of sight their
swarming and alert the beekeeper at the instant pre-swarming range was measured up to 20 meters.
is initiated, through the cloud servers in an efficient and
effective manner. IV RESULTS
Typical block diagram as shown in Fig 1.1 consists of
NodeMCU which is connected to DHT11, BMP180 power The project proposed a low-cost, reliable beehive-monitoring
supply and load cell. The design of the proposed system system based on a WSN to measure the temperature, relative
revolves around maximum functionality in the practical humidity, and weight of beehives in real time and non-
environment and at the same time is developed to be user intrusively. Unlike other beehive-monitoring systems, Bee
friendly, compact and completely built on the Microcontroller performs the synchronized acquisition of samples from all
platform. hives of an apiary. This aspect is fundamental for future
The system proposed in this project is used to monitor the analysis of the data and their comparison between different
parameters that indicate swarming and alert the beekeeper at hives.
the instant pre-swarming is initiated, through the cloud servers
in an efficient and effective manner. To ensure that bees don’t V APPLICATIONS
leave the apiary during proliferation it is necessary to detect The applications of the proposed project are:
swarming as soon as it is initiated. • The smart hiving technology allows beekeepers to
receive all information related to bees inside the hive
at regular intervals of time.
• It will be made possible to hive under unfavorable
weather conditions.

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• By using the sensor network whole farm can be facilities needed to prepare this report.
brought into control. I would like to thank Dr. D.V. Manjunatha, Head,
VI ADVANTAGES Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering,
AIET, for his valuable suggestions and guidance throughout
Autonomous design reduces human errors in controlling, thus the period of this report.
reducing labor dependency.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my
• Reduces the labor charges. guide, Mr Sachin K, Assistant Professor, Department of
• Having temperature and pressure sensors helps to get Electronics and Communication Engineering, AIET,
the perfect yield. Moodbidri for his guidance, encouragement and inspiration.
VII CONCLUSION I am thankful to my Project Coordinator, Mr
This paper which mainly deals beekeepers in general, are Santosh, Assistant Professor, Department of Electronics and
nature interested people and can see their bees as pets. Communication Engineering, AIET, Moodbidri for her
Listening to bees on remote would probably be nice, having valuable guidance, encouragement and co-operation during the
automatic analysis of the sound would make a detection course of the seminar and presentation.
system, as the probably will do. Using weather data in
combination with weight could serve as a good detection REFERENCES
system for bees during winter/spring for “need to feed”, and • Anand [1], the work presented in this paper was focused on
developing a system that could help monitor the beehive and detect
during summer season, “time for expansion” or “time to swarming by two methods.
harvest”. However, all this data needs to be analyzed in the • Daniel M. Lofaro [2], proposed that bees are an important part of
context of beekeeping. All beekeepers have different routines our echo system. Pollinators, such as bees, help at least 30% of the
and details in their methods. Andersson means a beekeeper world’s crops and 90% of the world’s wild plans to thrive via cross-
pollination.
have no use of information, if there are no plans for actions, • Zacepins [3], proposed that Honey bee wintering process is one of
due to the information. Since there are majorities of beekeepers the biological processes, which nowadays can be monitored and
that non-professional, they will probably want to have the controlled using the information technologies, control methods and
“relation to their bees”, using too much technology is probably tools.
• Edwards Murphy [4], Monitoring the sounds emitted by honey
not wanted, like having robots doing the actual beekeeping bees in a beehive is an important activity for beekeepers to ensure
work. that their bee colonies remain healthy and to maximise
VIII.ACKNOWLEDGEMENT productivity.
It is my proud privilege and duty to acknowledge the kind of • Rodriguez [5], proposed a recognition system for pollen bearing
help and guidance received from several people in preparation honey bees from videos of the entrance of the hive is presented.
• Zacepins [6], proposed that implementation of precision apiculture
of this report. It would not have been possible to prepare this methods into practice is highly depended on availability and cost-
report in this form without their valuable help, cooperation and effectiveness of honey bee monitoring equipment.
guidance. • Edwards Murphy [7], proposed that honey bees have held a critical
First and foremost, I wish to record my sincere role in agriculture and nutrition from the dawn of human
civilization.
gratitude to the Management and to our beloved Principal, • Thomas D. Seeley [8], proposed a paper that says Worker piping,
Dr. Peter Fernandes, Alva’s Institute of Engineering and which is reported only in hives, was observed in swarms as they
Technology, Moodbidri for his constant support and prepared to lift-off to fly to a new home.
encouragement and for making available library and internet

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