BeeSmart: a real-time remote monitoring and control system for beekeeping

The development of agriculture has generally come with an increase in the use of agrochemicals and our region is no exception. In consequence, beekeeping production has been negatively affected by the death of bees and product contamination. Besides, the beehive's state of health is a good indicator of the quality of the environment in the area. However, beehives usually are located in remote sites that hamper frequent visits to asses beehive health. Remote monitoring of the production of honey and beehive health would be beneficial for the beekeeping community and also for environmental supervision. This work presents a prototype of a real-time monitoring and control system for apiaries as a first step to providing an integrated solution to beekeepers. The system consists of a device installed in each beehive to measure parameters of interest, such as internal temperature and weight, and transmit this information to a hub connected to the Internet. The internal temperature map is a proxy for the presence and activity of bees. The information collected is presented to beekeepers through a web application where they can access the data of each beehive and open or close its door. Preliminary results show that the proposed approach and system architecture are very promising. Future work includes building a more robust mechanical design, assessing other communication technologies, and a more affordable solution.