We met with our project partner, Dr. Rippel, to discuss the way the beehives work, the purpose of certain functions, and any past challenges for creating a monitoring system. He described the structure of the beehives, which typically consist of at most 2 boxes and 2-3 suppers, which could reach a weight of up to 260 pounds. We would only need to measure the weight of the whole hive (not the individual supers) but we would have to take into account that the hives can become very heavy easily. We also discussed the best places to include the sensors for temperature and humidity, which Dr. Rippel mentioned that he was unsure as to where the best place to place them would be since the internal temperature can vary due to the bees moving around depending on the season. He did however, briefly mention that the center might be a good place to start but that we might need to experiment with it. Another aspect of the project that was discussed is the challenge of finding a good energy source for the components. The apiaries are situated far away from other buildings and thus are not close to electricity. This might indicate that we may need to rely on solar power or a similar form of energy, although the apiaries are in the shade for most of the day, meaning that we may have to find an alternative solution. Another issue that was considered is that the bees tend to put propolis on components that are placed inside, making the implementation of temperature and humidity sensors a challenge. Finally, we confirmed with Dr. Rippel that it is okay to have the website updated every 12 hours (at most); he said that as long he has continuous (~ every 5 minutes) sensor data it is relatively unimportant when the website is updated. However, we still plan to update the website as often as possible, so we will experiment with power sources and the ESP32’s capabilities.
February 2023
