Design and implementation of a low- cost bee productivity monitoring system

Abstract

Uganda has a honey production potential of 500,000 tons annually, but only produces 1% of its capacity. This low productivity is attributed to traditional beekeeping techniques such as manual inspection of the beehives, negligence of the bee health and honey producing capacity. To solve this problem, we set out to develop a system that supports automatic, accurate monitoring of the beehive. The system we proposed was an Internet of things (IoT) platform that used sensors to collect weight, temperature and humidity data from the beehive. We chose weight as a parameter because it is an indicator of the quantity of honey in the beehive and a measure of the foraging activity of the bees. We chose temperature because its levels are an indicator of the colony health and brood development. Humidity is an indicator of the bee reproductive health. Our work focused on designing and developing the system hardware and software compatible with the raspberry pi platform that we piloted in the field. We achieved a functional reliable prototype of the system that facilitated the remote monitoring of the selected beehive parameters on an online platform. The system proved efficient but could further be improved with the addition of sound and image data, and machine learning algorithms to improve its accuracy and reliability