{"id":762925,"date":"2020-06-01T05:56:40","date_gmt":"2020-06-01T09:56:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=762925"},"modified":"2020-06-01T05:56:40","modified_gmt":"2020-06-01T09:56:40","slug":"monitoring-bees-with-a-raspberry-pi-and-beemonitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=762925","title":{"rendered":"Monitoring bees with a Raspberry Pi and BeeMonitor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keeping an eye on bee life cycles is a brilliant example of how Raspberry Pi sensors help us understand the world around us, says Rosie Hattersley<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The setup featuring an Arduino, RF receiver, USB cable and Raspberry Pi<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Getting to design and build things for a living sounds like a dream job, especially if it also involves Raspberry Pi and wildlife. Glyn Hudson has always enjoyed making things and set up a company manufacturing open-source energy monitoring tools<\/a> shortly after graduating from university. With access to several hives at his keen apiarist parents\u2019 garden in Snowdonia, Glyn set up BeeMonitor using some of the tools he used at work to track the beehives\u2019 inhabitants.<\/p>\n

\"Glyn<\/p>\n

Glyn checking the original BeeMonitor setup<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThe aim of the project was to put together a system to monitor the health of a bee colony by monitoring the temperature and humidity inside and outside the hive over multiple years,\u201d explains Glyn. \u201cBees need all the help and love they can get at the moment and without them pollinating our plants, we\u00edd struggle to grow crops. They maintain a 34\u221eC core brood temperature (\u00b1 0.5\u221eC) even when the ambient temperature drops below freezing. Maintaining this temperature when a brood is present is a key indicator of colony health.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wi-Fi not spot<\/h2>\n

BeeMonitor has been tracking the hives\u2019 population since 2012 and is one of the earliest examples of a Raspberry Pi project. Glyn built most of the parts for BeeMonitor himself. Open-source software developed for the OpenEnergyMonitor<\/a> project provides a data-logging and graphing platform<\/a> that can be viewed online.<\/p>\n

\"Spectators<\/p>\n

BeeMonitor complete with solar panel to power it. The Snowdonia bees produce 12 to 15 kg of honey per year<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The hives were too far from the house for WiFi to reach, so Glyn used a low-power RF sensor connected to an Arduino which was placed inside the hive to take readings. These were received by a Raspberry Pi connected to the internet.<\/p>\n

\"Diagram<\/p>\n

Diagram showing what information BeeMonitor is trying to establish<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

At first, there was both a DS18B20 temperature sensor and a DHT22 humidity sensor inside the beehive, along with the Arduino (setup info can be found here<\/a>). Data from these was saved to an SD card, the obvious drawback being that this didn\u2019t display real-time data readings. In his initial setup, Glyn also had to extract and analyse the CSV data himself. \u201cThis was very time-consuming but did result in some interesting data<\/a>,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Sensor-y overload<\/h2>\n

Almost as soon as BeeMonitor was running successfully, Glyn realised he wanted to make the data live on the internet. This would enable him to view live beehive data from anywhere and also allow other people to engage in the data.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is when Raspberry Pi came into its own,\u201d he says. He also decided to drop the DHT22 humidity sensor. \u201cIt used a lot of power and the bees didn\u2019t like it \u2013 they kept covering the sensor in wax! Oddly, the bees don\u2019t seem to mind the DS218B20 temperature sensor, presumably since it\u2019s a round metal object compared to the plastic grille of the DHT22,\u201d notes Glyn.<\/p>\n

\"Bees<\/p>\n

Unlike the humidity sensor, the bees don\u2019t seem to mind the temperature probe<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The system has been running for eight years with minimal intervention and is powered by an old car battery and a small solar PV panel. Running costs are negligible: \u201cRaspberry Pi is perfect for getting projects like this up and running quickly and reliably using very little power,\u201d says Glyn. He chose it because of the community behind the hardware. \u201cThat was one of Raspberry Pi\u2019s greatest assets and what attracted me to the platform, as well as the competitive price point!\u201d The whole setup cost him about \u00a350.<\/p>\n

Glyn tells us we could set up a basic monitor using Raspberry Pi, a DS28B20 temperature sensor, a battery pack, and a solar panel.<\/p>\n

The post Monitoring bees with a Raspberry Pi and BeeMonitor<\/a> appeared first on Raspberry Pi<\/a>.<\/p>\n


\n
\nSource: Raspberry Pi – Monitoring bees with a Raspberry Pi and BeeMonitor<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Keeping an eye on bee life cycles is a brilliant example of how Raspberry Pi sensors help us understand the world around us, says Rosie Hattersley The setup featuring an Arduino, RF receiver, USB cable and Raspberry Pi Getting to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":762926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,110],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-762925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rpi","category-unfiltered-rss","tag-rpi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=762925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/762926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=762925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=762925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=762925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}