# BroodMinder



## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

I think this is cool hope it comes to fruition. Would be nice if they could get the price down once going.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Just how does it help bee winter by knowing the temperature and humidity in your bee hive?


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## jfmcree (Mar 10, 2014)

I agree. It does look cool. The cost isn't high compared to other products with other comparable capabilities. It seems like a product that needs to be in each hive, versus 1 hive within an apiary, to be effective. That is going to drive up the cost for someone with more than a few hives. I've seen hive scales for predicting the start of a flow in which you only need 1 hive in the apiary to be a proxy for the others. That doesn't seem to apply here.

I have 30+ hives in 5 locations and would not spend $40 or $60 each ($1200 to $1800) for hourly humidity and temperature readings. It would also require me to visit each location to get the data as Bluetooth does not have much of a range. I might spend $60 for one just for fun. I think I would get data, but not necessarily information.

Jim.


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## GarrickG (Nov 29, 2014)

Maybe if it could figure out the dew point on the inside of the cover...


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## beeware10 (Jul 25, 2010)

looks like a natural to go into a flow hive. lol


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

Michael Palmer said:


> Just how does it help bee winter by knowing the temperature and humidity in your bee hive?


You it probably wouldn't, but someone that doesn't know their bees , a spike in temp and humidity would indicate early brood rearing which would be good data to know if there was an extended winter and stores were getting low.


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## codeboy823 (Aug 14, 2012)

True. I don't know that it would help you overwinter but you would be able to tell if your bees were still alive without opening the hive which would be nice. And I suppose the humidity reading would let you know if you had adequate ventilation. So that would let you test out various hive configurations (wrapping, not wrapping, etc) to see what effect it has. I will have 5 hives going into winter and although I wouldn't plan on buying 5 of these, I do like the idea that I could just stand in the middle of the hives and get readings for all of them at once on my phone.


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## jfmcree (Mar 10, 2014)

You could only get readings for all of them at once on your phone if you had a device in each hive: 5 x $40 = $200 for that convenience.

I am not sure there is value in knowing at any given time in the Winter if a hive's bees are alive or dead. You could assume they are alive until you learn otherwise. There is nothing to do if they are dead, except cleanup, and there is no rush to do that in the Winter. Periodic checks on stores that you might do anyway will let you confirm your bees are alive.

These devices seem like a hammer in search of a nail. I think the remote scales are of greater value and would be more interested in a wireless electronic scale than this.

Jim.


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## DanielD (Jul 21, 2012)

GarrickG said:


> Maybe if it could figure out the dew point on the inside of the cover...


With the the temperature and humidity known you can know the dew point temp of that air mass. An online chart would do that. 
Water vapour liquifies on a surface that reaches the dew point temp.


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## RobA (Dec 18, 2014)

jfmcree said:


> I think the remote scales are of greater value and would be more interested in a wireless electronic scale than this.
> 
> Jim.


Their website says they are working on that. Aiming for March 2016.


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## codeboy823 (Aug 14, 2012)

Michael Palmer said:


> Just how does it help bee winter by knowing the temperature and humidity in your bee hive?


I was thinking about this question and I have some thoughts on how it might help you to overwinter.
1) If you know the humidity level then wouldn't you know if the hive needed more ventilation or not and correct the issue?
2) Since my understanding is that the bees maintain a certain temp no matter what the outside temp is (and I know this temp is different if there is brood present or not), wouldn't you be able to see if the internal temp started to drop meaning the bees were having trouble? Maybe they ran out of food and couldn't generate heat any longer with no fuel and maybe you could react to that? Also, wouldn't you be able to see when they started to raise brood by the temp going up all of a sudden? That might be helpful to know.

Thoughts?


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

Definitely more interested in the wireless scale tech. It would be cool to have a phone app that you could see your daily wt gains/losses


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## Biermann (May 31, 2015)

What good does one sensor do right under the lid? Wouldn't we not need several sensors throughout the top brood chamber, mid center, top, sides ot make a story out of it?

Good idea for every 10 or 20 hives, probably.

Knowledge is power, to much knowledge is agony.

Joerg


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

The data that this could produce would probably be interesting when combined with other information such as hive weight, weather, and observations of entrance activity and inspection data - but it's probably a bit much as a management tool.


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## Biermann (May 31, 2015)

Hello,

I had a reply posted, but it disappeared into the thin air of cyberspace.

Anyway, rather then talking, I went in for five units since I need them for other applications too and they are a super bang for the good US buck.

I will report once they arrive.

Cheers Joerg


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## codeboy823 (Aug 14, 2012)

Biermann said:


> What good does one sensor do right under the lid? Wouldn't we not need several sensors throughout the top brood chamber, mid center, top, sides to make a story out of it?


My thinking is with monitoring devices like this you aren't looking for a complete sensor reading of the entire hive. I would think that seeing TRENDS is important. For example, if I put one of these under my inner cover and I have two deeps plus a full honey super below that, I would expect to see the temp readings gradually go up as the cluster moved up in the hive. The humidity on the other hand would be important measured right under the inner cover because that is where it would typically condense, right? So, I guess I don't see that as being too much information. Admittedly I would be tempted by a 100% monitored hive with temp, humidity, camera, audio and weight measurements!!! =)


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## dgrc (May 4, 2015)

I signed up for one. I agree, it's more for the hobbyist than for the pro.

A number of people, myself included, have played around with arduino's and cheap temp/humidity sensors with varying degrees of success. I'm documenting my very, very preliminary efforts are here. A far more complete approach is described here

If anyone else is working on such projects, I'd be pleased to collaborate and/or share information.


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## codeboy823 (Aug 14, 2012)

dgrc said:


> I signed up for one. I agree, it's more for the hobbyist than for the pro.
> 
> A number of people, myself included, have played around with arduino's and cheap temp/humidity sensors with varying degrees of success. I'm documenting my very, very preliminary efforts are here. A far more complete approach is described here
> 
> If anyone else is working on such projects, I'd be pleased to collaborate and/or share information.


I posted a comment to your site. I've done a lot of playing around with Arduino with a variety of different setups and challenges too.


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## DPBsbees (Apr 14, 2011)

What I want to see is an inexpensive device I can place under the back of a hive that gives me live time hive weight. This I would gladly pay for.


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## Commander147 (Apr 22, 2013)

Saw this on Wisconsin News Station about this product. Channel 3000.com Madison Wisconsin.


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## dgrc (May 4, 2015)

So after signing up for one of these on kickstarter I decided to cobble together my own quick and dirty version with a DHT22 sensor, an arduino, a laptop and some duct tape.







After some fiddling, it reported temperature of 68[SUP]o[/SUP] F, about 5[SUP]o[/SUP] F above ambient and relative humidity of 82%, about 30% above ambient. I reported this success to my wonderful wife and waited for her expressions of admission. Instead, she asked the obvious question. "So what should the temperature and humidity be inside the hive?"

I shrugged and promised to get back to her. So help me out folks, what should the temperature and humidity be inside a hive at the top of three deeps?


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

t:

How difficult would it be to setup an arduino to be used in a queen cell incubator to control the heat and humidity?


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## dgrc (May 4, 2015)

BeeCurious said:


> How difficult would it be to setup an arduino to be used in a queen cell incubator?


For something as basic as what I show here, not hard at all. Eliminating the laptop (used only to power the arduino and display the output) is the obvious next step. Fancier things like logging data, outputting it to your phone, etc. Up the ante considerably.

I'm blogging my design and build here: 
http://www.crowswood.com/bees/ and will make everything I learn and discover freely available as open source. Please feel free to join me there and offer your ideas.


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## DanielD (Jul 21, 2012)

dgrc said:


> I reported this success to my wonderful wife and waited for her expressions of admission. Instead, she asked the obvious question. "So what should the temperature and humidity be inside the hive?"
> 
> I shrugged and promised to get back to her. So help me out folks, what should the temperature and humidity be inside a hive at the top of three deeps?


You should have told her it was right where it was supposed to be under current conditions.


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## Biermann (May 31, 2015)

DPBsbees said:


> What I want to see is an inexpensive device I can place under the back of a hive that gives me live time hive weight. This I would gladly pay for.


Hello DPBsbees, then this [URL="http://broodminder.com/#TheScale"[/URL] will probably be what we all are waiting for.

Cheers, bee happy, Joerg


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## capitalbeesupply (Jul 28, 2013)

Picked up some Broodminders tonight to experiment with. The primary developer lives down the road from us and occasionally buys some bee equipment from us so we are going to give it a go and see what we learn. He's a realist and understands that in some ways this is an experiment and that it will likely lead to more questions than answers. In addition to trying it out inside a couple hives to see what it does, for us these will be replacing some other data logging type measuring/monitoring devices we use when we are testing various wintering concepts for hives, other products and also for some non-beekeeping applications. I agree the scale could be the item with greater appeal.


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## sjj (Jan 2, 2007)

Mathematical modeling of honeybee colony will benefit from this data acquisition system.


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## xphoney (Nov 7, 2014)

For us, we have hives in some very windy locations, and our main thought is to see how bad it gets in the hives. Then we can experiment with different types of wind breaks to see how temp and humidity change vs. outside temps.

In the other extreme, we have found that hives placed against a particular dark concrete wall really explode with wax production. Maybe this will shed some light on whats going on.

Its a neat toy, so if anyone has any other suggestions, feel free to let us know.

Andrew
XPHoney


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## beesimex (May 7, 2007)

temp - 50, RH - 68% I just got one unit, the plan is to move it from hive to hive and see reading of the strong hive vs week ones. Now, what is the ideal temperature and relative humidity of the overwintering cluster?


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## codeboy823 (Aug 14, 2012)

I received mine yesterday. I was very impressed by the packaging. Nicely done graphics and a well done “quick start” guide. On top of that, a nice thank you signature from Rich!

The devices themselves looked great. The battery tab was clearly labeled and upon removal I could see the flash of a yellow LED to tell me it had power.

I had already signed up for the iTunes beta so the app was already installed. I fired it up and within a few seconds the devices were reporting!

I tested the Email Data Log feature and I have a nice .csv file in my email box that I could easily make a graph or chart with.

I’m very impressed with everything so far and I plan on placing them in my hives this weekend.

I posted a bit more about my BroodMinders on my blog if you care to read:
http://beeginnings.blogspot.com/2015/12/2015-12-08-broodminder-has-arrived.html


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## Biermann (May 31, 2015)

@codeboy823, thank you for your nice blog, much appreciated.

Can't wait to receive and install mine.

Joerg


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## dgrc (May 4, 2015)

I got my Broodminder last week. The build-quality is good, the android software is a bit crude but functional. My only concern is that it reports 100% RH most of the time. I have my own crude temperature and humidity sensing that shows more typically 86%. 100% RH in the hive scares me if it's true. I have a more detailed summary of my experience on my blog.


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## bodosom (Dec 4, 2010)

We have several Broodminder 42s (15) and so far one of eight tested has a "bad" moisture sensor. At least it's fairly off from the rest I've tested. I've also compared them to a couple of hand-held units (Testo 410 and Kestrel 4000) which agree with each other and both have been "corrected". The BM42 temperatures are okay but the humidity is off about 20% which I think is a bad offset in the read routines. I have three in hives and they're mostly reporting 100% (most of time, all the hives). If everything 80% and above is reporting 100% then the utility may be a bit less than I'd hoped. The units in the hives are also reporting bad battery data -- 50% or less -- but the BM folks seem to think that's a glitch.

I was hesitant to power all of them up because replacing the battery means opening the package (easy, I've done one) and then closing the package which looks to be a bit more daunting but I may have to rather than wait until spring and the new hives.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

In the limited experimenting I've done amd what I've read, I wouldn't assume any humidity sensor to read accurate without testing. Temp is fairly straightforward...the little digital one wire devices are cheap, accurate, and easy to use.


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## xphoney (Nov 7, 2014)

I've installed two of five and put them just under the insulation and above the inner cover.

Couldn't be easier to set up and install the app. The app is limited, using ver 0.9 IOS. 

The app allows you to take a picture of the hive or name tag to have a visual identifier and also allows you to name each BroodMinder. I can read both hives from inside of the house.

55 today and bigger hive, which moved up to eat the sugar block over honey, is staying at 80 F and 53% RH. The smaller one has settled at 65 F and 77% RH. That one is clustering down one deep.

Seems to be working well so far.

Andrew
XPHoney


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## erikebrown (Oct 27, 2014)

bodosom said:


> We have several Broodminder 42s (15) and so far one of eight tested has a "bad" moisture sensor. At least it's fairly off from the rest I've tested. I've also compared them to a couple of hand-held units (Testo 410 and Kestrel 4000) which agree with each other and both have been "corrected". The BM42 temperatures are okay but the humidity is off about 20% which I think is a bad offset in the read routines. I have three in hives and they're mostly reporting 100% (most of time, all the hives). If everything 80% and above is reporting 100% then the utility may be a bit less than I'd hoped. The units in the hives are also reporting bad battery data -- 50% or less -- but the BM folks seem to think that's a glitch.


That might explain what I am seeing. I have two of these units and both of them are reporting 100% relative humidity (RH). I put a first unit on a hive and was seeing RH above 90% most evenings for a few days. I had not yet vented the hive so I figured this was my signal. I added a shim to each of my two Langs this past Tuesday and placed my second BroodMinder 42 in the second hive. I was away for a couple days so didn't check on them again until today (Friday). This evening both hives have been showing 100% RH for the last few hours (see attached).

Given your 1-in-8 failure rate, it seems unlikely that two different units would be bad. Still, it doesn't seem right so I'm not sure what to do about it.









Erik


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## Bob J (Feb 25, 2013)

bodosom said:


> The units in the hives are also reporting bad battery data -- 50% or less -- but the BM folks seem to think that's a glitch.
> 
> I was hesitant to power all of them up because replacing the battery means opening the package (easy, I've done one) and then closing the package which looks to be a bit more daunting but I may have to rather than wait until spring and the new hives.


Is the "glitch" actually a rapidly depleting battery or is it incorrect reporting? I have 10 and they are all showing low batteries....


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## bodosom (Dec 4, 2010)

Bob J said:


> Is the "glitch" actually a rapidly depleting battery or is it incorrect reporting?


According to the update from Broodminder they think it's caused by measuring reserves (probably by voltage) too close to the periodic LED flash.


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## bodosom (Dec 4, 2010)

erikebrown said:


> ... I'm not sure what to do about it.


Ideally Rich will explain how it works so people can make informed decisions. The battery life issue can't be fixed without a code change so that's that but given a body of observations they might be able to re-interpret the battery reading in the app. Likewise the RH problem can be fixed if they are sending raw data and it's being corrected in the app. However if the unit to unit variation is too large then the app would need to support a per unit correction and users would have to be willing to (salt) test units in the field.

I suspect the test reading provided with each unit is not done in a known environment so it's more a "this unit returns values close to the last batch" not "this unit is reading 90% in a 75.3% environment".


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## Biermann (May 31, 2015)

Hello,

my 5 Broodminder came today and I am very impressed how Rich and his crew did this, all thumbs up :thumbsup:

Well packaged, short and clear explanation what to do and it works.

Except, with knowledge comes the need of correct action. my hive measures T88°, H79%, B100. Ambient temp. outside is 14°F, meaning in my humble opinion the bees are making it to warm in the hive and eating up more reserves than they should, or do I see this wrong?

I had expected something like this, because a large amount of bees are hanging right under the cover.

Any suggestions?

Cheers, Joerg


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## Bob J (Feb 25, 2013)

bodosom said:


> According to the update from Broodminder they think it's caused by measuring reserves (probably by voltage) too close to the periodic LED flash.


Thanks! Hopefully they will have a fix out soon.... Am very impressed with the product so far.... Great way to keep track of my hives through a new England winter!


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## Bee Arthur (Mar 21, 2015)

Thanks for the discussion on this. I just ordered one to try out. Regarding the high relative humidity readings, I wouldn't be surprised if those aren't accurate. I say that because I've been using a ventilated super and rubber stoppers to try and manage/monitor hive moisture this winter. What I've noticed is that--unless I keep a significant number of the vents open--there is condensation in the hive. Which I guess means the RH is 100%, unless my understanding of meteorology is off.

In any event, I look forward to hearing more about people's results and trying it myself. And mostly I look forward to development of the BroodMinder scale.


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## bodosom (Dec 4, 2010)

Biermann said:


> my hive measures T88°, H79%, B100. Ambient temp. outside is 14°F, meaning in my humble opinion the bees are making it to warm in the hive and eating up more reserves than they should, or do I see this wrong?


Unless you've gotten the sensor in the cluster 88° seems high with an ambient temperature of 14°. Unless of course your hive bodies are atypical.


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## bodosom (Dec 4, 2010)

Bee Arthur said:


> Regarding the high relative humidity readings, I wouldn't be surprised if those aren't accurate.


The 100% RH* readings aren't accurate. Condensation in a hive is caused by warm air touching a cold surface. The boundary layer where condensation can happen can be very shallow. Think of an iced drink on a sultry day. It's not foggy on your veranda but there's condensation on your iced tea. As previously noted I have multiple BM42s and I've compared them to reasonably accurate hygrometers. They all read high. Some read so high that they can't be used to measure RH in a hive. E.g. I have a Kestrel data logger in a hive with a BM42 and the BM is reading at least 21% high.

*If RH is 100% it's not "raining" in a hive, it's "foggy".


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## erikebrown (Oct 27, 2014)

bodosom said:


> The 100% RH* readings aren't accurate. Condensation in a hive is caused by warm air touching a cold surface. ... As previously noted I have multiple BM42s and I've compared them to reasonably accurate hygrometers. They all read high. Some read so high that they can't be used.


That's what I see as well. I have two and they seemed high, often at 100% RH. I finally took them out of the hives and they still read 100%, so clearly an error. I might be careful of making hive changes relying only on the temp sensor as well. Not enough data to know how accurate these are yet. 

Erik


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## Biermann (May 31, 2015)

@DPBsbees, this is coming from the broodminder team, just wait, but I agree with you and go one step further:

IMO, the temp. and humidity above the cluster is secondary to knowing the hive weight between fall slow-down to spring-start-up. If the hive is in good (energy storage shape - ESS) than the bee community in the hive can withstand a lot. If they run out of ESS, all other efforts are meaningless.

@Broodminder - I have placed broodminders all around my home, 3 at the hive (one above the cluster, one beside the cluster and one outside the hive) and I come to the following conclusion:

It seems the batteries are more sensitive to temperature than what I had hoped. The unit outside at -18°C is now at 1% after four days of reading.

The unit inside my house at 21°C has the best retained power with 93%. I will see if the unit outside will die now or if the measured value is not really a true value, not dying will verify one or the other.

The power consumption has to do with reading frequency, so if the current 1 minute interval is changed to a 5 minute interval the power consumption should be reduced by 80% unless I miss something since this is not my expertise.

I believe a frequency of every hour would be all that is needed to show a trend.

I hope Richard and his team can shed some light on this if they read the thread's related to their product.

It is my hope to be productive to the broodminder, my comments are not meant negative and I hope it is received in a positive way.

Cheers, Jörg


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## John Davis (Apr 29, 2014)

The broodminder folks seem to be on track to add the hive scale technology about midyear. One of the developers is a member of my beeclub. He had the original load cell units as well as the new beta test ones just out this week as part of a club presentation tonight. He has them installed in hives in his apiary and one set is being installed in an observation hive that the club maintains. The data will be available on the broodminders site. App is free.


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## dgrc (May 4, 2015)

I backed their crowdfunded temperature + humidity monitor. They rushed it to market and it never gave good humidity readings. They've committed to a recall but so far haven't announced any details.

Load cells for long-term weight monitoring typically have poor thermal stability and tend to creep with extended duty cycles. The result is noisy, hard-to-calibrate data. While I wish the BroodMinder folks success and I really want a data-logging hive scale, my experience makes me skeptical. I'll not buy one the first year on the market but I'll be watching for reports. If the product works well, in 2017 I'll be in shut-up-and-take-my-money mode.


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## LKBruns (Jul 12, 2014)

I would like a sensor that indicates hive weight. That with a Flir thermography camera could help me know where the bees are during the winter without worrying about opening up the hive and feeding.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

deknow said:


> In the limited experimenting I've done amd what I've read, I wouldn't assume any humidity sensor to read accurate without testing. Temp is fairly straightforward...the little digital one wire devices are cheap, accurate, and easy to use.


Whoda thunk it?


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## Bee Arthur (Mar 21, 2015)

I'm happy with my BroodMinder and will buy another when they're available. Before I installed the BroodMinder, the temperature and humidity readings were accurate when compared with a sensor in my house. Since installation, the readings have seemed logical and I haven't seen any anomalous data to make me question the accuracy. I'm also stoked about the scale--not necessarily to get exact weight readings, but to watch for trends that could indicate nectar flows, nectar dearths, or a need to feed.


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## dgrc (May 4, 2015)

LKBruns said:


> ...That with a Flir thermography camera could help me know where the bees are during the winter without worrying about opening up the hive and feeding.


Have you seen this? http://honeybeesuite.com/ir-and-hive-maintenance/

One image even helped spot the rodent infestation. A FLIR camera is definitely on my list of toys I really want.


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## Bee Arthur (Mar 21, 2015)

Broodminder's hive scale is on Indiegogo now. Cost is $164 including shipping in the US.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/broodminder-w-wireless-beehive-scale--3#/


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## dgrc (May 4, 2015)

Bee Arthur said:


> Broodminder's hive scale is on Indiegogo now...


I really want to love this product but I can't. They rushed the temp and humidity sensor to market and it failed. I'm still waiting for my replacement unit. The weight monitor uses load cells mounted to weigh the front half of the hive. That works accurately only if the weight is evenly distributed front to back. Also, load cells are not all that good for continuous measurement, they creep over time, and they're temperature sensitive.

I'm going to let some other early adopter absorb the risk this time. If they succeed, maybe I'll be in the market in 2017. Just my $0.02 worth.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

This is clearly not intended for continous use. They also state clearly that you need 2 if you want an accurate measurement.


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## dgrc (May 4, 2015)

The load cell will be under constant pressure whether the electronics are taking a reading or not. That, plus temperature swings will cause it to drift out of calibration and give inaccurate readings over time.

While two will give you an accurate total weight, that's $300/hive. Yowsers!


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

It is clearly designed (and the text is explicit in this regard) to tip the hive onto the scale for a single reading...not that the hive will sit on the scale long term. There is only a load when the hive is tilted onto the scale.


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## bodosom (Dec 4, 2010)

deknow said:


> It is clearly designed (and the text is explicit in this regard) to tip the hive onto the scale for a single reading...not that the hive will sit on the scale long term. There is only a load when the hive is tilted onto the scale.


I don't think so. I think they're floating the idea of mobility because of the cost. viz. from the newsletter:

Higher quality weight sensors that show *superior creep and temperature* performance
High quality 2-channel, 24 bit instrumentation amplified ADC
Temperature and humidity sensing is included in the event further compensation is possible using these factors

from the blurb:
"Stores weight once per hour for six months (user configurable)"


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

Apologies...when I read that it needed to be tilted, I assumed it was tilted to take a reading....on second look they are advocating to tilt it onto the scale permenantly.


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## bodosom (Dec 4, 2010)

*Musings on Broodminder W and TH*

Some random thoughs from the perspective of a backyard gadget* user.

While I doubt they were prompted by dgrc's comments in mid-March they do seem to be concerned about temp-co and creep. 
Unless your hive is badly tilted one unit should be sufficient (says my weak vector intuition) but it's easy enough to check. 
If you're only interested in over-wintering stores then a single end-of-season reading is sufficient (because of course you know the tare weight of your hives). But if you want to monitor things like flow and build-up then you want daily (even 4/day) readings. Not too hard for the back-yard beek target but maybe harder than you want to deal with. Hence the continuous design. 
While it's probably not too hard to sort out the null readings and your various hives I think, based on the current software, it's going to be a while before tracking multiple hives with a single scale is going to be easy-peasy. 
I'm still thinking about it but since we're about to convert to horizontal I have some concerns about loading on the hive "bottom board" under continuous use. At present we use stands that have a lift off "table top" and we slide a scale (w/ remote display) on a scissor jack under this and lift until the top is just clear of the stand -- it helps that our stands sit on a wooden platform. So if I go down this road it should be easy to compare the BM-W to a known good value.

I wouldn't suggest getting the BM-W or the BM-TH without a being able to validate the readings. Even the "not obviously crazy" humidity readings from the BM-TH were non-linearly wrong.

[SUB] *We have a remote display scale, Kestrel temp/humidty sensors, a Flir1 and several BM-T(H) units.[/SUB]


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## Bee Arthur (Mar 21, 2015)

"Apologies...when I read that it needed to be tilted, I assumed it was tilted to take a reading....on second look they are advocating to tilt it onto the scale permenantly."

It won't be tilted though just to clarify. You'll put a 2x4 on the opposite side of the hive to keep it level.

I'm a buyer and will give it a try. As I've said before, I like their TH sensor, and I look forward to being able to track _changes_ in weight more than the exact weight of the hive.


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## RobA (Dec 18, 2014)

Bee Arthur said:


> "...I like their TH sensor, and I look forward to being able to track _changes_ in weight more than the exact weight of the hive.


+1


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## Bob J (Feb 25, 2013)

I have the same thoughts..... Exact weight is not as important as trends over time.... I have the TH sensors in all my hives and find they are great when you are checking a yard in the winter/spring.... Hourly readings are stored in the unit and they are working on an app to be able to upload directly to the web.... Again, exact readings are not as critical as the trends particularly when you want to know when they start brooding.... 



Bee Arthur said:


> "Apologies...when I read that it needed to be tilted, I assumed it was tilted to take a reading....on second look they are advocating to tilt it onto the scale permenantly."
> 
> It won't be tilted though just to clarify. You'll put a 2x4 on the opposite side of the hive to keep it level.
> 
> I'm a buyer and will give it a try. As I've said before, I like their TH sensor, and I look forward to being able to track _changes_ in weight more than the exact weight of the hive.


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## Bob J (Feb 25, 2013)

A quick update...... The broodminder team has released a new version of their signature app..... I have to say the revised app is nothing short of awesome! Previously I could only see the current temp/humidity and could only see trends if I used a pc or tablet.... The newly revised app now gives you a temperature/humidity trend graph when you access each hive...... The trend graph has settings so that you can see the hour by hour results or you can see a longer period (weekly, monthly).... 

The biggest benefit I can see is to monitor when the hive is brooding, especially in the early spring.... You can also manually load someone else's sensors as long as you have their MAC access code...... Makes it very easy to check your results against someone else who is not local...... Handy if you Very nice job and cudos to the broodminder team. 

The only thing that is a (minor) negative is that you now have to sync each of your hives manually.... Easy enough to do but still the last version synced automatically... It's also worth noting that the individual hives no longer automatically sort so the most recent uploaded sensor id automatically sorted to the top. It is nice that the sensors on the screen turn green when they are within the download range of your phone.

All in all a very nice job by the developers.....!

Can't wait for the Broodminder W

Bob


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## JonCotton (Jun 21, 2016)

I agree with jfmcree, "like a hammer in search of a nail. I think the remote scales are of greater value and would be more interested in a wireless electronic scale than this."

Scales are very handy and I would find more use for these plus a LOT cheaper. It does come across a bit gimmicky and costly, however, I have not used one - and most likely won't


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