Idea behind the project


As we know, humanity is dependent on bees.
Guoting Einstein "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."


Base on this fact I would like to develope IoT platform for monitoring enviroment inside the hive.

Target for this project

The main target for this project would be providing valuable informations for beekeeper, base on which he will be able to adequately provide medicine or other required ingredients in order to save life of the bees as well humanity.


General background

The effect of temperature on the life of honeybees.

Vital functions and the processing capacity of honey bees to a large extent depends on the air temperature, not only outside, but also inside the hive. On the first we have no influence on the second - as much as possible.

When it comes to air temperature bee animal it is very demanding. If the conditions are not conducive, worker bees may stop working, and the strength of the colony will gradually decrease. It should be remembered that both too high and too low temperature may be in terms of bees unfavorable.


For example, should give some specific parameters, illustrating the change in the behavior of bees depending on the temperature. When the temperature drops below 9 degrees Celsius, it can be observed numbness bees, or a large deceleration all vital functions. Apart from a bee hive in the long run in such conditions will not survive. Sometimes, however, that even at 5 degrees fly out of the hive - but it is higher than necessary, which is short and fast flights to fetch water when the hive miss her.


Late autumn bees begin to create a winter cluster - the signal for them is the temperature below 14 degrees Celsius. Sam buttocks may have different heat was, depending on the depth of the layer - the temperature is at a level of 14-20 degrees Celsius.


The first flights after the winter bees perform when the air temperature reaches at least 13 degrees Celsius. Unfortunately, spring is sometimes tricky, and even if the day is warm, night frosts occur, which cool the next day. The first flights are therefore still very irregular. Top mops feel flying in temperatures above 20 degrees - that is, during the late spring, summer and during the warm autumn. But the heat also they do not favor - when it is extremely hot, and the thermometer shows more than 37 degrees, the bees suspend flights. During the hot weather on the benefits chosen so morning and evening, and the largest temperature staing in the hive.


Technical background

The main idea would be create IoT platform base on Arduino (or other) & ESP8622 & temperature sensor placed in hive.
In period of 15 minutes microcontroler will wakes up from sleep mode, measure temperature and save it in memory.


Another part of the system will be the base station, which will be connected via Wi-Fi network with each ESP8622 modules from individual hives.
To conserve power in lengths every 6 hours module ESP8266 from each hive will send information to the base station. The base station is configured as a web server, so that you will be able to observe the temeprature in the hive over period of time.


Challenges

First chalange would be create low power IoT platform that last at lease 1 year in hive.
Second would be not disturb the environment of life of bees. How 2.4Ghz from Wi-Fi would infuence a bees.