BBKA Forum

Japey Edge wrote:Interesting take. Remote monitoring is supplementary, I would never intend it to replace beekeeping - so for me it's useful as an indicator, rather than logging precise data.
There are reliable sensors on the market so I see this aspect as the easiest to accomplish. A single sensor near the middle of the colony is going to give a decent indication of what's going on.

Propolis shouldn't be an issue if the placement and casing is thought out. Trial and error will see something good result

near the middle?

Bee antennae do all this already

Justabeekeeper wrote: ↑

18 Feb 2020, 01:23

Bee antennae do all this already

Cool, how do you get them to send that information to your phone/pc from the comfort of your couch?

And does Maplins do Nectar points?

Alfred wrote: ↑

19 Feb 2020, 06:47

And does Maplins do Nectar points?

Ah, Maplins - how I miss them

For under a tenner you cn buy a bluetooth temperature monitor with a years battery life, so you could potentially log temperature information to you indoors on your smart phone if you had the hive close enough to your house. Pop it in to the middle of the brood-nest at your last inspection of the year and monitor the temperature of the cluster over winter - whch should tell you if they are brooding or not.
Some of these sensors detect humidity as well but my assumption is that the sensors will get propolised quite quickly and would not give a fair reading.