# Cost of Performing Hive Inspections



## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

better check the math in your example.
10 min/inspec x 6 inspec/yr= 60 min/yr. 
$10/hr x 1 hr= $10 yrly inspec cost
.............


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## pleasantvalley (May 22, 2014)

I have 11 employees for on average 6 months a year (less in the spring and late fall, fulltime during May-September). I don't break down their hours specifically for hive inspections. For example, 4 of them are running the extracting plant for 3 months. There is plenty of other work for us to do: yard maintenance, building equipment, etc. some of them get paid to sit in the truck for an 8 hour round trip while we drive to pull honey off the pollination yards. So it's a pretty easy calculation to total up the labor bill for the year and spread it out over the number of hives operated. If you're looking for a model strictly for hive inspections, that would require a level of tracking that I would guess few of us would do. My usual formula is 500 hives per person hired. We also go to each bee yard 20+ times per year, although that includes things like cutting grass/cleanup/fence fixing, pollination loading, feeding sugar, mite sampling etc. some of which you are AT the bee yard, but not opening many or any hives.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Bob,
Are you writing a Term Paper or a News article. I don't know if you can quantify hive inspections done on a commercial basis. I don't specifically go through each hive inspecting every comb at set regular intervals each year. Once I have done what I need to do to make sure a hive is ready for the coming year I don't bother the brood chamber very often or very much unless something indicates that I need to.


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## Eduardo Gomes (Nov 10, 2014)

sqkcrk said:


> Once I have done what I need to do to make sure a hive is ready for the coming year I don't bother the brood chamber very often or very much unless something indicates that I need to.


Mark this statement leaves me a question : how do you check if the colony is or is not to swarm ? In the period of the swarming (for about a month and a half) I try to give a view every 8 days to the nests to control swarming.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

In the 60's and 70's, the "Bull of the Woods" gave you 4 minutes per hive to inspect all 10 brood frames. Since mites, we now run closer to 6 minutes a hive. Starting with the dandelion bloom, we visit every 14 days. When extraction starts, the interval increases.
Add in travel time and you will have the high end number for costs. Everyone else will likely be cheaper.(no offense SQKCRK)

Crazy Roland


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## Bee Certain (Jan 1, 2016)

Thank you all for your input and sorry for the math error of my original post (it's late at night here in Lower Stupidia).

To answer sqkcrk's question, I'm trying to figure out if there is an economic justification for "measuring" the health of a hive so that a beekeeper can reduce the number of hives that have to be inspected.

For amateur and even sideliner beekeepers there are arguments like "save the bees", "be the first on your block to have a hive", "reduce the cost of replacing a hive", and "increase honey production". Based on conversations that I've had with a few commercial beekeepers, I'm assuming that I need a purely economic argument. Which is not to say that commercial beekeepers are not interested in saving the bees, just that you can't save the bees if you're not making money.

I should ask the more general question: what can I do from a technology standpoint to help you, the commercial beekeeper, reduce your costs? To give you an example of what I'm thinking, I can tell you the gross, overall health of a hive expressed as: Low, Medium, or High and I can do that for about $1/month/hive. Is that of interest?

I can do other things like tell you if a nest is filling the outside frames, temperature/humidity difference in the hive and weight of honey, but those things are more expensive and may or may not be justified economically.

Bob


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

"To answer sqkcrk's question, I'm trying to figure out if there is an economic justification for "measuring" the health of a hive so that a beekeeper can reduce the number of hives that have to be inspected."

I would say, that even though I don't do as much inspecting as Roland does I am sure that every inspection that Roland and crew does pays for itself again and again.

Don't think of what it costs, consider what it pays. I am sure that my hives would be better off were I to inspect them more often.

I wondered about where Bee Certain was coming from, so I checked his Profile. In case you were too, here it is.

About Bee CertainBiography:Retired engineer, amateur beekeeper, Developer of Bee Certain Hive Monitoring SystemLocation::Tidewater, Oregon, USAOccupation:FarmerHomepage:bee-certain.com# Years in Beekeeping:3

Are you using Infrared Imagery, Bob?


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## Bee Certain (Jan 1, 2016)

I'm using a simple temperature difference between the inside and outside of a hive. A temperature sensor is placed inside each hive and one sensor is placed outside the hive. The inside sensor is about the size of two quarters stacked on top of each other. Inside sensors are placed on top of a top bar in the upper brood box. There are no wires. A beekeeper drives up to the yard, opens a laptop/notebook/smart phone and gets a list of hives tagged Red, Yellow, or Green. More detail and options are available, but that is the general idea. There is one System Recorder per yard that can be solar powered and can send data back via cell phone or satellite link if desired.

We sell temperature/humidity and weight systems now. I'm trying to determine if there is a market for an inexpensive system for the commercial sector.

First the system needs to be useful -- I think the jury is still out on that question.

Second, the system has to make economic sense -- something like "spend $2/month/hive and save $4/month/hive through reduced hive inspections" -- again jury is still out.

Third, the system has to not get in the way of normal beekeeping operations and must be easy to use -- I think I've got that one nailed.

You all are the jury by the way. Comments are welcome.

Bob


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

When bees cover the sensor with propolis, what happens?
Temperature and humidity I can see, but how would you measure weight?


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## Bee Certain (Jan 1, 2016)

I have two styles of In-Hive Monitors:
1) The Hive Monitor that I am currently producing measures temperature and humidity. The monitor is placed on the top of a frame in the upper brood box with the humidity sensor facing downward on to of the frame. Installed in this fashion, the bees can not get to the sensor itself. The rest of the unit gets some propolis, but it really doesn't matter.
2) The commercial monitor that I'm proposing is temperature only. It is placed in the upper brood box the same as (1) above.

For weight, I have a simple electronic scale similar to what you would purchase at a Big Box Store. The main difference is that my scale sends data back to the System Recorder so I'm trading radio cost (in my system) for a digital display in the consumer scale. There are beautiful stainless steel hive scales in the $500 dollar range. My scale has a plywood base and uses a telescoping hive cover. My goal is to sell the scale retail for $50 -- perhaps built into a bottom board (my current, small quantity production cost is $70 + telescoping cover).


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

What do you expect a beekeeper to understand from a temperature reading? I guess, if the sensor is above a cluster in Winter, if the sensor inside the hive and the sensor outside the hive read the same then the colony is dead. Otherwise, what else? And what about the other months of the year?


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## RudyT (Jan 25, 2012)

$70 for a hive scale is a winner, in my book. Hobbyists (or maybe just "low tech" hobbyists like me) would probably be happier with the readout digital scale than a fancy data system.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Once you have swarming under control, there is very little reason to go into the broodnest. There is some logic in having a scale hive in each bee yard to fine tune information about nectar flows. I don't see a good use for having a scale on each hive in the yard. As for internal sensors, IMO, there is not enough information gained to justify cost. Can you tell me how your internal sensors are going to contribute to any of these items?

The statistics you need to manage a beekeeping operation IN THE REAL WORLD are:
1. How many of your colonies swarm each year?
2. How much salable honey does each colony make each year?
3. How much handling equipment do you have to purchase to produce each pound of honey sold?
4. How much does it cost you to maintain each colony for a year?
5. Overall, does it cost you less to retain colonies or to purchase anew each year?
6. How many nucs whether for sale or for use does each colony produce each year?
7. How much income from pollination does each colony make per year?

You can quibble about things like wax to sell, but I've never met a beekeeper yet who could make a living selling wax. He CAN make a living selling bees, honey, and/or pollination.


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## Bee Certain (Jan 1, 2016)

There is a cross-over that occurs. On a hot day, the temperature inside the hive is a bit cooler than outside. On a cold day, the hive is warmer. There is a "dead band" around the cross-over where there is no information as to the health of the hive. One trick is to measure the difference when it is meaningful. Here in Coastal Oregon, a good time to measure is usually at night when the inside temperature will always be higher than outside for a healthy hive. In warmer climates, it may make sense to measure reduced hive temperature during the day. The best time to measure and the interpretation of the data is handled by the software. The beekeeper is presented with one of three values: low, medium, or high "health" based on the last interpretation. The beekeeper can look at the graphed data if desired, but that should not be necessary.

I want to be clear that while the temperature, humidity, and weight monitoring system exists, I have not yet implemented the hive health calculation in the System Recorder. The motivation of asking the original question was to try to figure out if there is any interest on the part of commercial beekeepers. By the way, no is a perfectly good answer.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Fusion_power said:


> You can quibble about things like wax to sell, but I've never met a beekeeper yet who could make a living selling wax. He CAN make a living selling honey and/or pollination.


Yeah, but you don't throw your wax away, do ya? So selling it is part of the income stream and should be accounted for.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Bee Certain said:


> The motivation of asking the original question was to try to figure out if there is any interest on the part of commercial beekeepers. By the way, no is a perfectly good answer.


Not of interest to me. But I am just a 500 hive hobby beekeeper. I can't imagine it would be of interest to my friends who run 5,000 and 10,000 hives each. You'd have to really show a benefit to them. The concept is too unusual. Best wishes.


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## Bee Certain (Jan 1, 2016)

Good questions, thank you. Let me see if I can address some of them.

1. How many of your colonies swarm each year?
I have a prototype sensor that can tell you when bee activity increases near the outside frames. Knowing that, could you anticipate a swarm? One person mentioned checking for potential swarm indicators every 8 days. I know that outside frame activity is not as good as a visual inspection for queen cells, but is it good enough "insurance" that you could inspect less often?

2. How much salable honey does each colony make each year?
If you put a scale under each hive, then you can identify under-performing hives during the honey flow (slower increase in weight). You can also detect hives that are starving within inches of their honey during the winter (premature leveling off of honey consumption). You can also detect hives that are about to run out of honey at the end of winter, start of spring (based on total hive weight). One question that I have is this: Could you take more honey in the summer if you could measure honey consumption throughout the winter and early spring? (i.e. play it closer to the starvation limit).

3. How much handling equipment do you have to purchase to produce each pound of honey sold?
Not sure I can help here.

4. How much does it cost you to maintain each colony for a year?
My thought on reducing maintenance cost is to reduce the number of times a hive has to be inspected. Short of putting multiple cameras in each hive (too expensive), is there any other information that would be useful?

5. Overall, does it cost you less to retain colonies or to purchase anew each year?
Don't think I can help here.

6. How many nucs whether for sale or for use does each colony produce each year?
Is there an opportunity to optimize hive conditions? If so, then I may be able to help -- sorry for my ignorance.

7. How much income from pollination does each colony make per year?
I know that there is a limited amount of time that a hive can stay on a truck. I've been told that, since there is nothing that can be done about it other than getting to the destination, there is no advantage to knowing the conditions in a hive while being transported. Is that true?


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

The kind and thoughtful SQKCRK touched on an important element. Our inspections are done not only to prevent bad things from happening, but to make good things happen. We are manipulating frames to keep open comb in front of the queen. Little of the information that can be collected prior to our visit would be of value when we get there. Every hive is opened and managed.

Let's say you could build a sensor that could detect the queen's stinky feet, or lack thereof. Let's say 7 days after an inspection, you report that hive ##### in yard ### just lost it's queen. You are not going to stop everything and race to yard ### with a queen just for that hive. The information would help you pack a spare queen in 7 days (14 day cycle) when you next visit. 

What may be of value in the future is a front door toll booth. Daily records of flight activity, weather corrected might be of value detecting pesticide spray losses. Usually we get there too late and can not ascertain what happened, or find dead bees to test.
You may be able to weigh the foragers when the leave the hive first thing with your hive scale.

Crazy Roland


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## Bee Certain (Jan 1, 2016)

Thanks Roland,
Sounds like a simple hive health indication is not going to save you any labor costs.

Let me try to capture things that might be of interest based on your comments and comments from others.

Some of these may not be practical to implement or economically justified:
1. Loss of a queen
2. Entrance activity
2.1. Bees entering and leaving
2.2. Number of bees at the entrance
3. Forager loss
4. Weather conditions
5. Weight
5.1 Weight of hive
5.2 Weight of honey

Any solution would need the following characteristics:
1. Rugged
2. Rugged
3. Rugged
4. Inexpensive
5. Off-grid operation
6. Theft resistant
7. Easy to use
8. Compatible with existing operations

Anything else? Should I move this to a new thread?

Thanks,
Bob


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## JSL (Sep 22, 2007)

I understand the premise, but looking at other forms of ag, there is nothing better than a walk through the barn. All sorts of things can be automated and mechanized in a farming operation, but having a trained set of eyes walking through the building provides so much information.

When I walk into a yard, I typically scan for what is wrong and that is what gets attention other than the planned activities.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

"Some of these may not be practical to implement or economically justified:
1. Loss of a queen
2. Entrance activity
2.1. Bees entering and leaving
2.2. Number of bees at the entrance
3. Forager loss
4. Weather conditions
5. Weight
5.1 Weight of hive
5.2 Weight of honey"

Are you talking about the detection or indication of those things? The only one of which is important to me being the loss of a queen.

I really don't glean any useful information from any of those characteristics.

Bob, once I have my hives in their Summer locations, following the time when they were in apple orchards, I check them for queen rightness, signs of swarming, and disease. Maybe I check varroa count. I should check some for varroa mites. Don't always or as often as I should. I reverse the brood boxes and may pull some brood from some hives and give it to others or make nucs from the brood I pulled. Then I put two or three shallow supers on each hive and move on to the next yards doing the same thing.

Once I have all my hives in their Summer yards and have done the above to all of them I leave them alone for a while. A couple weeks maybe. Maybe I go across the road from my house and pop a cover or two to see if there is honey coming in or not. And if there is, maybe I load the truck with supers and go out to see if any hives have nectar in their top boxes or not. 

If they do, they get another super. Because if they have some nectar in the top box and I don't give them more room then they need, when the flow really turns on some hives won't have a place to store it.

Now I am not as disciplined as my friend Roland, so I don't go out to my hives on a scheduled every 18 day tour, checking brood frames and all. When I do go out, all I am looking to see is whether the hives need more room or whether honey is ready to come off. 

Certainly, especially in this day and age of varroa, I should be checking a couple hives in each yard, regularly, for varroa in case the varroa count suddenly explodes. But I don't. So can your device tell me when the varroa count is about to explode? When it would be economically a good idea to forgo a potential honey crop and treat for varroa instead?

Once the hives are set up for honey production, that's my focus. Production, removal, and reinstalling supers for the next flow(s). And then all over again. Then removal of honey supers come September for the late Summer honey and so I can get a mite treatment on before it becomes time to ship bees 1,000 miles south for the Winter.

That's more or less what I do with my hives from between May and November. Do you see anything in there that your device might be able to tell me that I can't tell by working my hives? Which I have to do anyway, even if I had a device in them that told me something before hand. Before I got to the yard.

Someone who goes into hives regularly can tell whether there is something wrong with a hive or whether everything is alright. There is something that gives one a feeling that everything is okay, or something, a sound or lack of sound or an odor or something which spurs a beekeeper to look deeper into the hive. A feeling, perhaps. Otherwise, if things look fine, it's on to the next.

I'm glad you are working on something, some technology, that may prove beneficial to beekeepers and bees. I hope you stick with it. What you come up with may well benefit some other concern other than beekeeping. Who knows.

But, as was talked about today in the sermon we heard too many of us know nothing about where our food comes from, how it's made, and who makes it. The Land, the farms and fields and apiaries, are just places between cities that people fly over and see from far above. Spaces between cities and suburbs. Beekeepers need to keep their hands in their hives. Their hands and eyes and noses and hearts. Lest we loose something irreplaceable. Our connection with that which sustains our very souls. Our connection with LIFE and NATURE.

I hope you keep working at what you are striving for, for greater knowledge and understanding is important. Greater knowledge and understanding is a frontier we will never fully grasp or conquer. There is always something more to find, uncover, know more fully or see from a different angle. So don't give up.

I just haven't seen anything you have presented which would be of help to me and my bees.

Check out Jerry Brumenshenck, University of Montana, Missoula, MT. He has a device you can stick in the entrance of a hive which can tell you all sorts of things. A hand held device, about the size of a hand held walkie talkie radio. Maybe you two should collaborate.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

And I am not as good at making money from honey as my friend SQKCRK. His methods where used extensively, and worked well in this area until about 5 years ago. Something has changed. It is getting harder and harder to keep LAYING queens in a hive. It is getting harder to get a single bee to live more than 4 weeks. We MUST inspect, and take corrective action every 14 days just to keep a source of hatching brood in the hive. I understand his situation, and might do the same.

Have you looked into "smell" sensors? So much of what goes on in a hive is based on smell. I believe I saw a news clip about one developed at Fermi lab 15-20 years ago.

If you could "sniff" the incoming bees and alert when pesticides are detected, that might be of value.

Crazy Roland


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

That's how Bromenshenck's device works, on odor.


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## Bee Certain (Jan 1, 2016)

Thank you all for the input. I'll look into Jerry Bromenshenk and Bee Alert Technology in more detail. My first read leads me to believe that his work is more theoretical than practical, but I may be wrong. Besides, theory is a necessary starting point. There is also a difference in philosophy: one highly capable tool taken to many hives, vs many less capable tools embedded in each hive. Each has its advantages and disadvantages with the one tool approach winning out for solving complicated problems. One hand held infrared scanner will beat out individual infrared scanners in each hive. Although technology advancement will eventually favor the small, distributed solutions, in my opinion.

Here is an example of technology advancement: Somebody got the idea that your toaster should be able to talk to your refrigerator over the Internet and as a result the "Internet Of Things" was born. I think talking toasters are silly, but the IoT technology boom is what makes my remote hive monitoring even possible.

I'll look into odor and sound. However, none of this makes sense unless I can improve your bottom line. If I COULD tell you that a hive has lost its queen, would that save you any money, given that you are going to open the hives anyway?

I can measure hive weight of each hive and send that data "to the comfort of your own home" via satellite link. With that information you can see: under performing hives; hives who's workers don't return having been killed by pesticides; and hives that are about to starve (in the winter). I can do that for about $10/month/hive. However I don't think that's good enough unless I can save you having to go into a hive, saving you a drive out to your yard, or alerting you to visit an orchard to collect dead bees for pesticide testing.

sqkcrk, you wrote a long and detailed reply that I very much appreciate. I want to give myself more read and understand some of your comments. Again thank you.

Bob


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## Bee Certain (Jan 1, 2016)

Some of sqkcrk's comments:
"Are you talking about the detection or indication of those things?" 

I'm not quite sure what you mean by detecting vs indicating. I've been talking with a guy in Colorado that says he can detect the number of bees leaving a hive based of the change in sound of their wings. Do you mean the difference between "bees are leaving the hive" vs "20 bees are leaving the hive per minute" vs "trouble: it's a warm day and only 5 bees per minute are leaving and it should be more like 30".

"The only one of which is important to me being the loss of a queen."

Understood. Odor seems most promising if I can detect the change inexpensively.

"signs of swarming"

Am I correct that the best indication is the presence of queen cells? Would it help if I could tell you of increased bee activity on the outer frames?

"So can your device tell me when the varroa count is about to explode?"

I've given that a lot of thought -- especially since it is so important. Counting varroa is one thing, detecting when it is about to explode adds another level of complexity. If you could magically have complete knowledge about a hive, what conditions would lead up to a varroa explosion?

"Once the hives are set up for honey production, that's my focus." 

I can tell you the amount of honey in each hive and how it changes over time. Based on previous messages, I'm not sure the information would be much help to your bottom line. It might help you plan a strategy as to which hives get supers?

"ship bees 1,000 miles south for the Winter"

I can tell the driver the temperature and humidity inside a few hives on the truck, but that seems to be a non-starter based on other conversations.

Is there any advantage to being able to monitor the health of your hives when they are overwintering?

"Do you see anything in there that your device might be able to tell me that I can't tell by working my hives? Which I have to do anyway, even if I had a device in them that told me something before hand. Before I got to the yard."

That is the problem. Or, on a more positive side, the good news is that beekeeping is so hands-on that any technology just gets in the way? I, obviously, like technology, but I also like close-to-nature and hands-on.

"Check out Jerry Brumenshenck, University of Montana, Missoula, MT. He has a device you can stick in the entrance of a hive which can tell you all sorts of things. A hand held device, about the size of a hand held walkie talkie radio. Maybe you two should collaborate."

I'm on it.

Thanks,
Bob


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

If your device could in some way tell how many varroa are present in a hive, or maybe what the mass is like, and whether there are more one week, then the growth could be graphed over time.

Were there a way of telling how infested a colony was, it wouldn't have to be numbers so much as something else I can't quite put the right word to, then over time how much more infested and whether the bee population is ahead of the curve or the varroa is gaining. That might be useful.

I don't think I expressed myself well. How familiar are you with the annual growth of a colony and the annual growth of the mite population within that colony/hive? If there were some way to detect those things, that might be of value.


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## Bee Certain (Jan 1, 2016)

Hi sqkcrk,

When you say "... or maybe what the mass is like, ..." what are you referring to?

I've solved the easy part of mite detection: getting the data back to the beekeeper and even showing the beekeeper which hives are in trouble. The hard part is taking a measure of the mite infestation.

Just for the sake of eliminating the obvious. The identification of a sick, under performing hive is reactive and too late, you're asking for a proactive indication before the colony is heavily infested and before its performance is adversely effected, is that correct?

The trick is coming up with an inexpensive, easy to use technique.

Suppose that I could give you an hourly or daily mesure of mite drop, would that be of interest?

Bob


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

The mass, the population of mites. Not so much the total number. I don't know how to say what I think I mean.

I'm not sure if the hourly or daily mite drop would necessarily indicate much. I don't know.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Is SQKCRK looking for a little calculus, such as change in mite populations? If you can measure bee populations and mite populations, you could graph the increases/decreases and extrapolate the mites/bee into the future. 

Do mites have a smell?

Crazy Roland


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

They do defecate. So they probably do create an odor. I imagine.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

You are looking to generate a development curve showing population dynamics between mites and bees. If you put it on a graph in excel, the normal curve would show the bees trending up fast in the spring, mites trending up over the summer, bees trending down in fall, mites trending up fast relative to the bee population in the fall because the mites had 3 or 4 brood cycles over the summer and are at a peak where the bees are now declining as they prepare for winter. Plotting that crossover where the bees and mites reach the point that the mites are about to overwhelm the colony would be useful.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

That's what I was trying to say.


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## Bee Certain (Jan 1, 2016)

This is good information, thank you.

Roland, calculus/rate of change may not be necessary. The mind is great at seeing patterns in noisy data. My guess is that a graph would be sufficient.

Fusion_power, my monitoring system lets you download data to excel, but also displays plots directly on the screen.

Here is a screenshot showing temperature and humidity on the same screen.







The hard part is getting the raw data on mites at a reasonable cost.

Let's, for the moment, assume that I can collect data on mite population and bee population and present graphs of both.
Would you instrument each hive, or would a few "sentinel hives" be enough?
How much would you be willing to pay per year for that information?

Bob


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

I'm thinking 5% or 10% of the hives. I run 40 hives per yard in my Summer locations. So, either 2 or 4 hives per yard would be "sentinel hives".


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## Bee Certain (Jan 1, 2016)

Thanks to everyone for your input. I'll see what I can do for a sensor. It wont happen right away, but it's fairly high on my list.
Bob


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## bucksbees (May 19, 2015)

Asking a question here, what about a sensor that fit below a SBB (freeman stlye), that can register debris falling thru it. The higher the debris count, the higher the need to be looked at? Also if the sensor has the ability to judge the size of the item going thru it. Then it will be able to know if it is a wax scale, a mite, shb larva, and so on and so forth.

If it works I only ask 10% of royalties.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Bob, here's my commercial perspective. We do pretty full spring inspections as part of our yearly nucing activities. After that they only get brief inspections when we suspect a problem. So is there a commercial market for a permanent in hive device monitoring various in hive measurables? Unless you can cheaply and easily monitor if a colony is queenright, or perhaps about to become queenright when it has a honey crop stored above the brood nest then my answer is don't expect much business from the commercial sector which is the market any successful bee related product would need to tap into. I'm not trying to be harsh here, just giving my assessment. 
I would suggest working on something along the lines of the device Jerry Bromemshenk has been developing. It's a portable listening device that can equate various sounds bees are making with different hive conditions or maladies. It's a really interesting concept. Make it rugged, portable, and reasonably fast and accurate and you might well have a device you could market to a lot of beekeepers.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Hey, Bob, have you heard of this? Eyes On Hives.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/152272a00fa954f5?projector=1


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## Bee Certain (Jan 1, 2016)

Hi Bucksbees, that was what I was alluding to when I was talking about measuring the mite drop as an indication of mite infestation. I can't do a percentage, but I will send you a beta test system if/when I get something working.


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## Bee Certain (Jan 1, 2016)

Hi Jim, nothing can replace a good eyes-on inspection. The best any system can do is give you a probability that you may not have to open up a hive.

I got into this because humidity is a killer here on the Oregon Coast. I was frustrated that I could not check my hives in the winter. Keep in mind that I'm strong on technical stuff, but short on beekeeping experience.

I think acoustic analysis has potential if the cost is low. Chemical is probably always going to be too expensive. I plan on following up on acoustic.


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## Bee Certain (Jan 1, 2016)

Hi Sqkcrk, the link you gave didn't work for me but I was able to find this:

http://www.keltronixinc.com/

Thank you! Yet another way diagnose a beehive. My guess is that they are doing pattern recognition of the imagery. Visual plus acoustic could be a winner -- both try to correlate patterns with hive health.

There is a "cool factor" that will appeal to amateur beekeepers, I'm not sure about commercial beekeeping since the camera has to look at a hive over an extended period of time.


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