Project code: PN-III-P2-2.1-CI-2018-1562
Name: “Sistem inteligent de monitorizare a coloniilor de albine”
Contract Number: 270CI ⁄ 2018
Bees is a key factor in agriculture, responsible for pollination of plants and forests. CCD (Colony collapse disorder) is a very serious problem, manifested by the decrease of the number of bees in the colony. Most of the time it’s causes are not known, or can be found through a thorough research of the colonies involved it may be parasites, pesticides genetically modified crops, or even the ambiental radiation produced.
Over 79% of the crops consumed by humans are pollinated by bees and the market value of these crops is estimated at the level of 155 Billion Euro annually.
The project proposed brings a innovative solution for these problems by introducing an Intelligent Hive Colony Monitoring System, in order to determine their health and detect anomalies.
The system will be composed of 3 main components:
– Monitoring interface of the collected parameters, with detection and alerting capabilities
– Database storage and archive system.
– Acquirement procedure of the hive parameters with modular extension interfaces.
Monitored parameters correlated with the health of a bee colony are: the level of atmospheric gases such as: CO, CO2, O2, temperature and humidity, particle level of dust and chemical pollutants such as NO2, H2, NH3, isobutane or toluene.
The proposed system allows the monitoring of bee colonies especially during winter, it is hard and not recommended to physically intervene in the hive during prolonged periods. By monitoring the parameters of temperature and inner humidity, as well as the swarm of bees during the cold season, it can be early identified when the process of increased consumption of food starts, and then preventing the colony death if it remains without food. The swarm position (which moves after the food) can also be important: it will indicate both the food consumption and the ventilation level of the hive.
The platform used, makes possible the monitoring of bee colonies in hard-to-reach geographic areas and bad weather conditions.