# Broodminder -- how do you like it?



## Bee Arthur (Mar 21, 2015)

bchains said:


> How are people feeling about the Broodminder wireless beehive telemetry equipment? I've run hivetool for years to capture hive weight but am considering switching to broodminder. I'm primarily interested in weight as temp and other parameters are subject to close placement near the broodnest, etc.
> 
> https://broodminder.com/
> 
> ...


This is just my experience...

The weight measurements spike and dip each day with the temperature, so I always had to compare the same time of day to try to get comparative measurements.

Poor battery life is why I haven't used my two scales for about a year. During the first year I owned them I'd have to use two scales to keep measurements on one hive. That's because after about a month, one scale would stop working. Then I'd load a fresh battery into the second scale and do a swap, which would last me about another month before I needed to repeat the process.

The temperature/humidity sensors I stopped using after my first season with them because they were just breeding grounds for hive beetles.

The web interface for the data was so bad I ended up keeping my own spreadsheets and graphs of the data in order to get something useful out of it. After a while I stopped uploading my data to the website and just emailed it to myself for personal use.

Don't get me wrong, I'm rooting for Broodminder and I was an early supporter. I really like being able to see whether my hive was gaining or losing weight. But the battery life, above all else, made the scales too much trouble for me to use. I may throw them back on hives eventually, but for now I've got enough to worry about that I don't want to fiddle with swapping equipment every 4 weeks.


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## Specialkayme (Sep 4, 2005)

Bee Arthur said:


> But the battery life, above all else, made the scales too much trouble for me to use.


That's very interesting. Their website claims the battery lasts six months. I met someone at EAS that said she had to replace her battery for the first time after almost a year. 

Did you contact Broodminder about the short lifespan?


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## clong (Apr 6, 2015)

I've been using Broodminder for well over a year. I experienced the battery issue too. Broodminder replaced my units and the battery life has been fine since. I think the scale battery lasted 8 months. The TH sensor was still going strong, but I replaced it before winter just in case.

My apiary is shaded about 70% of the day. The weight does fluctuate with temperature, but only by a couple percent. What I've found interesting is the weight changes through a given day, especially during a flow. I haven't seen any weight drift.

You should contact Broodminder. [email protected]


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## Bee Arthur (Mar 21, 2015)

I talked to them about problems I was having, and they were gracious enough to send me a replacement, plus offer another Broodminder at a discount. I had the same issue with that pair of scales, so maybe I'm just really unlucky and got three lemons. I don't _think_ it was operator error because there's no setting on the scale itself that would affect battery life as far as I know.


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## [email protected] (Dec 14, 2017)

Hi All,

My name is Mike Fuller and I am one of the BroodMinder team. I handle customer support and I would encourage anyone with issues to contact us. We have several thousand sensors in the field now and we are collecting a lot of data. As far as the scale goes, we do hear reports from time to time from people seeing weight fluctuations corresponding to temp changes. These can be greatly mitigated though in most cases with tweaks we can suggest. I'll reply to some of the comments individually, but if anyone has questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Feel free to drop me a note at [email protected] 

Thanks,
Mike Fuller - BroodMinder Support


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## [email protected] (Dec 14, 2017)

Hi Bryan,

Thanks for your questions. 

Our general expectation with a good setup is that the scale weight should be accurate within +- a few pounds. On occasion, we find people with fluctuating weight due to temperature changes. Most often we've found this has little to do with the sensors and more to do with the individual setup. We are measuring weight on one side and multiplying by a scale factor. This means that if the scale is not on a fairly level surface or is twisted under the hive box, the weight on the scale can shift a bit as there are temperature changes or even in response to weight shifts within the hive. Sometimes people have to spend a little time tweaking initially to get things right, not always, but on occasion. We've learned a lot about different issues people run into, so we can usually offer some advice. 

As far as the batteries go, I tell people that if the batteries last less than 6 months at the standard setting, it probably means their scale has a defect. Many people find that their batteries last close to a year, however, we recommend that people change them in spring and fall, just to be sure you get them through the winter with a fresh battery and that seems to correspond to when most people make major hive configuration changes. We don't really offer the opportunity to power in any different way than the CR2032 coin cell battery. The housing of the scale really isn't compatible with additional wiring. Feel free to contact me with any other questions.

Thanks,
Mike Fuller - BroodMinder Support


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## [email protected] (Dec 14, 2017)

Hi Bee Arthur,

If you drop me a note at [email protected], I'd be happy to work with you to replace those scales. Poor Battery life is the first sign that there is a problem with the scale. As I mentioned earlier, you should be getting at least 6mos of battery life for a scale. If you aren't, there is a problem and we'll get you set up with replacements. The experience you're reporting is pretty bad, and definitely isn't typical. 

I haven't heard much about problems with hive beetles. I one time had ants move into one of mine, but haven't seen that recently.

I'm interested in your feedback on the web portal. If you have some things you're noticing, we'd love to hear about them. We've made a lot of changes in there over the last six months or so, and I would anticipate a lot of work will be going on there into the future. Any ideas you have would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike Fuller - BroodMinder Support


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## dp2k (Apr 22, 2012)

I've used it this year on two hives in my 6 hive bee yard. The scales and monitors have worked very well for me - the two hives are on different stands, one leaning forward and one leaning backward - as a result, they measure a little differently (over or under) but it's fantastic to get an idea of how the hive changes over time, and throughout the day. I believe most of my weight fluctuation (daily) was due to bees leaving the hive to forage, and returning - on days where it was rainy, the weight was constant, and even decreased a little as they consumed stores. One day I caught (my own) swarm shortly after they left the hive - it was really neat to be able to look at the data and confirm they flew from my own hive 30 minutes prior to my arrival! 

Family commitments turned me from a bee-keeper to a bee-haver in late summer - it was nice to occasionally check the hives via measurement, when I had no time to open them for inspection. No battery issues for me, on either the scales or the monitors. The system isn't inexpensive, but I'm hoping to get a number of years out of it, where I only have to change batteries (and probably the plastic covers the monitors are in - my bees LOVE to build comb on/around them.


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## Biermann (May 31, 2015)

Hello All,

I have been using the TH Broodminders since the early days of their existence and have now the third generation (I believe). Rick, Mike and the rest of the team are great fellows to work with and I do enjoy the BM's.

Now comes the but: they bring the personal procrastination out at its finest. I mean it gentle. From four units, I have only one working at this moment and the reason(s) are hard to understand from a office-desk perspective, but from a working man doing things now and doing them quick, the understanding might be different. After problems with 'creeping' humidity sensor and replacement free of charge, the last, G3 I believe, started out great. I am in a cold climate and all is fine in mid summer, when the temperature in the hive stays steady at 33-34°C, the batteries life is good, I would say a year is possible, but when the TH is in the cold area of the hive during winter (and I have one hive with two, one on top of B1 and one on top of B2) the temperature moves, because the bees move and it is nicely visible on the hive with two TH's, when both work.









Here is the problem, as nice as bees are, they are pigs if it comes to propolis, comb started wherever they have space to do so and it builds up on the TH broodminder's like mad (pic's below). Even removing them from the top of the frames is a mess because of the bees insatiable drive to plaster everything with this stuff. 

Here my way of doing thinks: I don't tear my boxes apart whenever it would make sense, I hear of guys doing this in a weekly or by weekly fashion. I start in March when the weather is warm, calm and nice (and I live in southern Alberta, when it is nice, normally the wind blows, making smoking the hive a farce) so that gives me in March a very narrow window to do what I need to do: taking the winter blanket of, inspecting quickly, adding syrup and pollen patties and closing it all up again, with the insulation back on. But, wait, forgot the TH's, sh..., open it again and the batteries are now at 45%!? Yes, new batteries for a successful new monitoring season, but how, the Th's come of like plastic pulled from candy and I have four, so four sticky pieces of messed up TH's that I have in my hand and only 30 minutes left, off to the lawn furniture and my wife's eyebrows are already going up like the roosters comb, opening the intricate mystery puzzle with the overlapping/under-lapping closer. Old batteries out, new once in, yes, I got the right ones, bingo. Looking for the little red light to blink and two do, two don't, out with the batteries again and try once more. Broke one of the plastic little clips that hold the battery in place, but the light comes on, great. Stick it all back together, three work, one doesn't, time runs out, in they go and all gets put back together with unhappy bees. Which one went in to what hive? Did I mess up? Yes, I did and on the end I have only one working. Sh.., maybe next time.

I open the top cover again in a week, give more syrup if needed, more pollen if needed and a good hive gets the first super in mid may, one more early June and I am extracting end of June and do three to five extractions if it is a good run. End September the last harvest, syrup in October and late Oct. they are being packaged up again for the winter with 4 1/2 month where they are at their own mercy and little chance to look after the BM's. 

The first year I knew in December which hives would make it and the once that would not, last year only three MB's worked and this year I am down to one.

This is how the TH's look when I pull them out and it seems it is only happening to me, nobody else seems to have this problem.















It is all great if you have time and passion, but I am not that type of guy, thinks need to be quick and simple for me. Maybe I can change when I have the time and I will try again. I will try again this coming spring and hope to be able to get all four going again, because it is great to see what the climate is inside of the hives. Perhaps the battery should not be in the BM, perhaps a small external solar panel, I don't know what would work best.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Broodminder, but it is the little things that tick me off.

Better luck next year.

Cheers, Joerg


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

Biermann said:


> This is how the TH's look when I pull them out and it seems it is only happening to me, nobody else seems to have this problem.


I had the exact same problems, put them in during November if memory serves correctly, by mid December batteries were dead when it got cold. I wont open the colonies during winter, so the TH unit sat there till time for spring patties, at which time I put in fresh batteries, but it was a real chore getting them free from the frames without damage cuz of all the propolis and wax. Looked good for a couple weeks, then suddenly the battery levels went from in the range of 90% down to nothing as the units stopped working again. I basically gave up on them, and they are sitting in a drawer now, not on colonies.


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## Biermann (May 31, 2015)

Hello grozzie2,

Broodminder had a discussion forum and I thought I switch this over to their web page to be fair, but no discussion forum left, so I continue here.

Side view of the TH sensing unit:








The actual broodminder TH is only 1 5/16" x 1 5/16" and only 2/16" high without the battery holder, so, if the energy source could be removed out of the hive with a miniature 3V solar/battery pack, this thing would fit in the smallest granny and should run forever. I have a Davis weather station with a 1 1/2" x 2" solar power panel and it is running for 15 years now, untouched. For this little baby, a 1"x1" solar panel should be sufficient.

I hope the Broodminder team looks in here once in a while and have something to say about this. It seemed to me I was the only one with this problem and it was not worth discussing. You gave me hope.

BTW, I never looked in to the scale because I use my bathroom scale for some time and it works just fine for fall and spring weight measures.

Cheers, Joerg


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

Biermann said:


> BTW, I never looked in to the scale because I use my bathroom scale for some time and it works just fine for fall and spring weight measures.


I have a colony on a scale, have had it going for a few years now. My setup is one I cobbled together using a small platform scale and little computer that reads the weight every 5 minutes. When I got the broodminder stuff I swapped out the computer for a raspberry pi with the bluetooth and wrote a little program to read the announcements from the BM scale so I could monitor two hives on scales. The first issue I ran into, at a distance of about 10 feet with 2 hives between them, the pi wasn't getting the data from the bm, so I moved things around to place the box with the pi between the hives, my scale on one side and the BM scale on the other side of it. That gave hourly updates, worked well, for a couple months, then the weather got cold and readings stopped. I have power out there, my other stuff is hooked up to mains power, so battery life is never an issue. I contemplated butchering the BM scale to plug 3v power directly but never got around to it.

We learned a new use for the scale hive last winter. At one point in the winter we got a huge dump of snow, heavy wet snow the kind we get here on the coast, not that fluffy dry stuff you folks in the interior get. When it was over 80cm of fresh new snow, we started to wonder if we needed to think about shovelling the roofs. I checked the scale hive, it was up something like 80 or 90lb, dont remember the exact number offhand. Did a little math on the snowload based on hive weight change and dimensions of the outer cover, came to the conclusion we had just over half the snowload that is specified in the building code, so as long as we didn't get another big dump before it started melting, house and garage should be fine.

Just checked, and since Thursday, hive has gained 12 pounds from snowload. A whole new way of measuring snowfall....


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## Bee Arthur (Mar 21, 2015)

[email protected] said:


> Hi Bee Arthur,
> 
> If you drop me a note at [email protected], I'd be happy to work with you to replace those scales. Poor Battery life is the first sign that there is a problem with the scale. As I mentioned earlier, you should be getting at least 6mos of battery life for a scale. If you aren't, there is a problem and we'll get you set up with replacements. The experience you're reporting is pretty bad, and definitely isn't typical.
> 
> ...


I just wanted to follow up. The replacement scale Mike sent me has been under a hive since January, and it's still working great. I'm really glad I gave it another try. For some reason, my old scales had wild weight fluctuations with the temperature and the batteries would die after about a month. But those kinks seem to have been worked out in the later scales, so kudos to the Broodminder team.


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