Temperature sensor network for prediction of possible start of brood rearing by indoor wintered honey bees

Nowadays control and monitoring of bioprocesses is an important problem and challenge for researchers and information technology specialists. Specific task range of bioprocess control is defined, which needs realization of intensive calculations and participation of operator in decision making. In a situation, when bioprocess or production process does not need human attendance and the process environment is not suitable for computing machinery it is necessary to use shared control techniques. Shared control means that computational equipment and operators are not located at the production site. That can be the case in various fields: agriculture, forestry, medicine. Common examples of applications are: greenhouse monitoring and control systems, control of drying processes, livestock management, agricultural field processing systems, fire emergency monitoring, etc. Honey bee indoor wintering process is one of such bioprocesses which can be monitored and analyzed using shared and adaptive control methods. During the winter time honey bees can be placed in a special wintering building with controlled microclimate environment in order to save physiological resources of the bees and preserve honey. This can be advantageous compared with outdoor wintered bees. During this period the main risk factor for beekeeper is that bees, while kept at temperature of 6°-8°C, can conclude that spring has started when in the reality it is still winter. As a result, bees can start an intensive process of brood rearing in winter and this can lead to the death of colonies. In order to control this process it is necessary to monitor the activity of bees by measuring temperature above the bee nest in the hive. The temperature and air humidity of bee wintering building is not suitable for computational equipment. Additional challenge is that the wintering building has to be kept dark to inhibit flight reflexes of the bees. Thus shared control techniques should be used. Wired temperature sensor network is developed to measure and control activity of bee colonies. For measurements one wire network is used, where digital thermal sensors are parallel connected with the interface device, which in turn is used to transfer data from the sensors to the end PC. According to the temperature changes it is possible to understand the brood rearing state of a particular colony. If an intensive brood rearing begins the beekeeper should receive a suggestion from the computer to slow down the process. The process can be slowed down by decreasing the temperature in the wintering building. On the other hand, the acceleration of the process can be achieved through increasing the temperature. The problem of compromise decision making has to be solved because the temperature changes will affect all the colonies. Decision making process is supported by mathematical modelling of bee colony dynamics to simulate possible outcomes of various control strategies. Additionally WEB interface is developed to ease the access to temperature data. An e-mail sending application is developed for notifications about error situations. The developed beehive temperature monitoring system is a part of the whole honey bee wintering building temperature control system.