BeeLive: The IoT platform of Beemon monitoring and alerting system for beehives

Abstract

Monitoring honey beehives is mainly done manually by beekeepers to evaluate the health of their hives and determine their growth and yield. With the emergence of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and tools, there have been some efforts in recent years to automate such monitoring. This can significantly benefit beekeepers as they can obtain critical data and insight into their hives' health and performance more regularly. In this paper, we use IoT devices and the Thingsboard dashboard to track the status of 28 honey beehives installed in the Western region of North Carolina as part of the Appalachian Multi-Apiary Informatics System (AppMAIS) project. In order to acquire data from a beehive, humidity and temperature sensors, as well as a microphone, have been placed inside the hives. In addition, a video camera has been placed at the top of the hive's entrance to obtain video recordings of the bees entering and leaving the hives, and a scale is placed under the hive to report the weight. The data collected from the sensors and peripherals installed in each of the AppMAIS hives are sent to the Thingsboard dashboard for management and visualization. In this paper, we report on our success with Thingsboard IoT tool to monitor honey beehives and take advantage of their capabilities to interact with the devices as needed to adjust operational parameters.