Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

ocba - Re: [ocba] (no subject)

ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Blair Christian <blair.christian AT gmail.com>
  • To: Marty Hanks <marty AT justbeenc.com>
  • Cc: Alwyn Smith <alwyn.smith AT googlemail.com>, betsey spencer <betseysbees AT gmail.com>, Orange County Bees <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>, NaturalBeesinNC AT yahoogroups.com
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] (no subject)
  • Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 14:41:57 -0400

For some reason I'm interested in real time monitoring of one or more hives.

I have been in touch with these guys:
http://hivetool.org/

and also with the guy from AES who presented on this last summer.

I have a lot of hardware and have talked with Alwyn about this a bit.
With the cost of hardware, you can almost do it for $50/hive (Real
time monitoring of temp in/out, humidity, weight)

I have tinkered with some monitoring software (in the statistical
process monitoring sense http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_chart ).
That way you can have it email you when it goes from dearth to flow
(or vice versa) or when there's a swarm or some other unusual
variation.

I have also looked into some libraries for image processing (ie,
taking photo(s) of a frame and counting (1) bees and (2) contents of
each cell). If anybody wants to help out and get it off the ground it
would be great. I just don't have much extra time right now).

Here are a couple other things:

Note: one of the bottlenecks is coming up with a cheap, precise and
accurate automated scale...

12 probe temp setup, with solar power (any arduino; expensive)
http://www.maxjusticz.com/honey-bee-tracking-box/

Bathroom scale based hive weight sensor (cheap, other board)
http://makingthingswork.wordpress.com/

To combat temp effects on weight measurements:

"i had to spend a long time calibrating the scale. the system has a
/very/ strong temperature coefficient. I probably spend 5 weeks with
the scale in the garage with between 45 and 90 lbs on it, trying to
figure out how to get it to produce a flat reading.

"In the end, I determined that the voltage swings were primarily due
to the attiny, and by setting up a voltage divider to produce a fixed
voltage, i was able to compensate for the fluctuations. With the
current setup, i am able to get readings at about +/- .5 lb of
accuracy, even though the resolution is much better than that. For the
purposes of beekeeping, this is just fine. My next version will be
much better, I hope :)"

On Sat, Oct 20, 2012 at 7:27 PM, Marty Hanks <marty AT justbeenc.com> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I came across this tonight while doing some research. Very interesting guy
> for sure and this link is for a low cost DIY "portable Hive Scale" !!
>
> Really cool stuff. http://www.beehacker.com/wp/?page_id=55
>
> Cheers,
> Marty Hanks
> Just Bee Apiary
>
>
>
> _________________________________________
> ocba mailing list | North Carolina Beekeeping| http://www.theocba.org/
> Manage Your Subscription: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/ocba/



  • [ocba] (no subject), Marty Hanks, 10/23/2012
    • Re: [ocba] (no subject), Blair Christian, 10/23/2012

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page