# stolen hives



## Jacobee (Dec 27, 2011)

i am hoping other beekeepers can help me find me and my dads hives. 230 hives stolen last week from wasco ca area.half doubles half singles. mostly white boxes some light tan and light blue. lids are mixed of old green flat lids, old white lids with top cleat, newer brown stained telescopic lids. old pallets. a few boxes have jacobees marked , some have carlton stamped, some terra bella boxes. if any more info needed call 626-733-2993. i can send pic of what they look like.


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

Sorry for your Dad's loss. I hope he gets them back. Some people are just plain ^%&**#@}{!


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## BigDawg (Apr 21, 2013)

I'm sorry this happened! It does bring up an interesting question--would it be possible to put RFID tags in the hives to help aid with tracking and identifying the hives? They're small enough that they could probably be embedded in the wax of a frame where a thief is unlikely to look.....


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

How you gonna scan the RFID once they're stolen?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

I know it's after the fact, but I think game cameras at vulnerable sites are a cheap investment, I use them myself. A warning sign CAMERA'S IN USE may also be a deterrent, provided there are multiple cameras where the thieves can't find them. Cameras could be at the bees site, and also somewhere along the access route, making it impossible for the thief who tries to remove the cameras to be sure he wasn't photographed.

These thieves have to be experienced beeks, so a pic published on Beesource would have a good chance of finding the offender.


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## RAK (May 2, 2010)

The only reliable tracking method is GPS tracking which is expensive. RFID wont work because you have to scan the rfid.


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## Jed (Feb 23, 2013)

RAK said:


> The only reliable tracking method is GPS tracking which is expensive. RFID wont work because you have to scan the rfid.


I agree with you ,I am currently doing research (in my spare time  ) on developing a cheap gps system for beeks . But sorry im a little late in this situation ,if and when I get it done I will for sure post it up on beesource .
really sorry bout your hives that's gotta be very irritating


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

Jed said:


> I agree with you ,I am currently doing research (in my spare time  ) on developing a cheap gps system for beeks .


My company does firmware for industrial embedded systems, and has been doing so for 15 years. To do a tracking system, the gps and processor portions are relatively inexpensive. The problem is, they need power, and a means of communicating. Those two requirements take one out of the realm of 'cheap', and into the realm of 'significant cash'. I've used cell, wifi, and satellite systems over the years inside gadgets for various data logging / collecting tasks. Power and communications make the gadget to spendy, every time I look at this problem. 

If you want something 'off the shelf' today, the least expensive is probably the spot personal tracker. A hundred bucks to buy, and I believe the plans run about the same price annually. Difficult to bury inside a hive, so it cant be seen, but, maybe easier to hide it on a palette somewhere. Dont forget to bring fresh batteries every time you go check the hives.


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## Jed (Feb 23, 2013)

grozzie2 said:


> My company does firmware for industrial embedded systems, and has been doing so for 15 years. To do a tracking system, the gps and processor portions are relatively inexpensive. The problem is, they need power, and a means of communicating. Those two requirements take one out of the realm of 'cheap', and into the realm of 'significant cash'. I've used cell, wifi, and satellite systems over the years inside gadgets for various data logging / collecting tasks. Power and communications make the gadget to spendy, every time I look at this problem.
> 
> If you want something 'off the shelf' today, the least expensive is probably the spot personal tracker. A hundred bucks to buy, and I believe the plans run about the same price annually. Difficult to bury inside a hive, so it cant be seen, but, maybe easier to hide it on a palette somewhere. Dont forget to bring fresh batteries every time you go check the hives.


this is what sparked my intrest in it I think a variation of this could work 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dsscircuits/open-source-tracking-device

???? are we getting off topic ....should we start another thread?


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## lupester (Mar 12, 2008)

Those are awesome!! Thanks Jed




Jed said:


> this is what sparked my intrest in it I think a variation of this could work
> 
> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dsscircuits/open-source-tracking-device
> 
> ???? are we getting off topic ....should we start another thread?


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

Jed said:


> this is what sparked my intrest in it I think a variation of this could work


Something like that is great for a one-off proof of concept etc, but, for a deployment of any scale, I see numerous issues.

a) Requires a data plan for each unit, which sends costs WAY up
b) It's a power hungry beast, not going to run for any length of time on 'plain old batteries'. There is an inherent assumption of power available with that setup. How many bee yards have power ?

Every time I see yet another post about stolen hives, I sit and ponder, looking at all the various gadgets kicking around the office here, and there are lots of them. I always come to the same conclusion, to deploy in any scale, final cost landed in the field, is going to be right up there with the cost of a hive. Solar would be an intriguing way to solve the power problem, small panels are getting inexpensive, but with a solar panel wired up to a hive / palette, it's advertising to would-be thieves, leave that one sitting, take the rest.

To make it work as intended, my thoughts are that a unit must come in at a final price point well under the cost of a hive. Needs to be of a form factor that can be discretely mounted in/under so that it's not plainly visible. In a lot of areas, cell is a workable solution for the communication, but, I also wonder how many hives end up being placed in a location without cell coverage ?

One thing I'd be interested in hearing from some of the folks here that have a significant number out in the field. What would be the price point required for you folks to seriously consider putting some form of tracking into a hive / palette ? When they go missing, do thieves tend to just pick up the palette, or, do they remove hives from the palette ? My thought is, it would be much easier to do a discrete mounting by placing the electronics in the pallette rather than in the hive(s), with the added benefit, of one gadget tracks a group rather than individual hive. The drawback is, if somebody lifts them all off of the palette, ultimately you are tracking the palette instead of the hives themselves.


Another option I've looked at, but, we certainly wouldn't do this without a substantial lead customer lined up, is to embed the whole works into a frame. I've looked carefully at the PF-520 frames here, and, with a little bit of plastic mold magic, it would be easy to bury the required electronics inside the top bar, and create a battery holder in one of the vertical sides. The top bar has plenty of room for both gps and cell antenna. With a very smart system, it could be built to run most of a season on a single battery load. Basic processor is essentially in sleep mode, and, wakes up by a signal coming from some sort of motion detection. Once awake, power up the gps, compare current position to distance from last known position, and if it's greater than some threshold, wake up the cellular component, and send text message 'home' with the current location. And if you wanted to get really fancy, add a thermocouple to the middle of the frame, to provide what amounts to some parasitic power. Set the frame in the middle of the brood nest, and let the bees keep the thermocouple warm. Feed the power generated back into the battery, and voila, a system that can go MUCH longer on a battery charge.

A variation on this theme, which may be a lot more practical, embed the same electronics, into a plastic which is form fitted to fit the frame, as a 'snap in' piece. Done well, it could occupy the corner of one frame, and look like a piece of capped honey. After it's been in for a few days, and the bees have propolized around it, built comb up to the edges, it'll be fairly easy to miss on a quick cursory inspection. Then again, changing the batteries becomes a real challenge.

But, realistically, to do this kind of an implementation, we are talking about individual frames that will run at a significant cost. Would a large scale operation be interested in that kind of cost ? My first thought is, probably not. Then again, maybe somebody is. But no matter how one twists the numbers, when all is said and done, it's going to cost as least as much as a new hive, to get this kind of setup into an existing one.

So, we run into the same problem we deal with on a lot of projects that are security related. First ask the question, what is the value of the item we are trying to secure? Second question, can we secure it for less than the cost of replacement ? If the answer is no, then it's rarely worth doing. And if it is worth doing, that's because we had the wrong answer to question 1 in the first place.

But, I guess this is probably one of the right places to ask the question. For some of the larger operations here, if you could buy a gadget for a hundred bucks, that disappears discretely inside the hive, and provides the ability to track it, would you buy it ? If so, how many ?


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## Jacobee (Dec 27, 2011)

good news , i found most of the hives, they were moved , hidden not too far from where they were set, same city. i am definately looking into the gps . i have been thinking about game cameras, most locations are behind gates, but i have to figure out a way to hide one in farming areas. not soo easy when nothing but dirt .


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

How did you find them, and did you get the thief?


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## mgalimbe (May 8, 2012)

congratulations on finding those hives.


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## Honey-4-All (Dec 19, 2008)

Jacobee said:


> good news , i found most of the hives, they were moved , hidden not too far from where they were set, same city. i am definately looking into the gps . i have been thinking about game cameras, most locations are behind gates, but i have to figure out a way to hide one in farming areas. not soo easy when nothing but dirt .


Am I the only one to smell a rat here? Were these things really stolen as originally claimed or not? Sounds like a case of the farmer moving them because he did not like where you placed them? This happens more often than you would think.... Especially with new and hobbyist farmers who HAVE NO CLUE about bee care.


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## Jacobee (Dec 27, 2011)

the problem may be internal, still looking into it.


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