Hi
I would like to build a bee hive monitoring system
Firstly what parts must I order and from where?
Are there any kits available?
The monitory system must be able to do the following.
Access to hive status from any internet enabled device.
Remotely monitor activity, temperatures, humidity and weight.
View or download historical data.
Instant alerts of theft or vandalism.
That’s a pretty advanced system you have in mind! Certainly you could buy the individual sensors to perform each of those functions and tie them back to a central platform, probably a Raspberry Pi to make internet connectivity a bit easier. Few questions off the bat…
- How close is the hive to the house (or to your router). WiFi will be the easiest option to get it online but distance can be an issue.
- What’s the best way to measure temperature of a hive? Can you stick a thermometer inside without disturbing it or does it need to be external?
- Could you roll the weight measurement and the theft detector into one device? I.e. If someone physically picks up the hive and walks away, the scale will read zero. Is that a good enough theft detector?
- How do you measure ‘Activity’? You could potentially point a camera at the hive to see what’s going on.
Each of these things are relatively easy to accomplish. There are so many tutorials online for this stuff that if you google “measuring temperature with Raspberry Pi” you’ll be overloaded with results. The hard part will be tying it all together into a neat system.