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BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => EQUIPMENT USAGE, EXPERIMENTATION, HIVE PLANS, CONSTRUCTION TIPS AND TOOLS => Topic started by: hydronics on June 13, 2012, 12:56:01 am

Title: Honey Bee Counter
Post by: hydronics on June 13, 2012, 12:56:01 am
Hi,

I wanted to share my honey bee counter... It counts bees as they leave and enter the hive.

*****I'll be at the mini-maker Faire in Eugene, Oregon this Saturday (6/16) if anyone is in the area and wants to check it out...
Also, our Portland Bee Keeper group is going to do a group build and sell a few with proceeds going to the Oregon State University Bee Lab... message me and I'll put you on the list....


Its so new I have no real data yet but I'll publish some information as it becomes available. I think I'll just use it from time to time to see the volume of bees entering and leaving. I'm a little concerned the 'gates' may keep the bees from cleaning out the hive... Any thoughts? cheers, -tom

Here is the website were you can review the design and build one yourself!

I'll have to wait to post until I get the administer to allow the links. -tom


http://www.instructables.com/id/Honey-Bee-Counter/ (http://www.instructables.com/id/Honey-Bee-Counter/)


honey bee counter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRsdcSe9cuM#ws)
Title: Re: Honey Bee Counter
Post by: yockey5 on June 13, 2012, 10:07:13 am
So cool!
Title: Re: Honey Bee Counter
Post by: Keskin on June 13, 2012, 05:39:07 pm
I doubt IR sensors will work? They can capped with propolis.
Title: Re: Honey Bee Counter
Post by: hardwood on June 13, 2012, 07:22:58 pm
Now if you could figure a way to make them put a drop of honey into a jar before they can pass you'd make a fortune!

Scott
Title: Re: Honey Bee Counter
Post by: BlueBee on June 13, 2012, 10:55:12 pm
Keskin, IR might go through propolis, I don’t know.  Visible light would be a problem for sure.
 
Hydronics, I like your design.  Nice Job!  I have had a bee counter on my “to do” list for about a year now and never got to it.  I like your circuit design for differentiating bees that are exiting vs those that are returning.  How many mm of space is there between your IR LEDs and the Phototransistors?  It would really be cool to distinguish drones and the queen from the worker bees  :) 
Title: Re: Honey Bee Counter
Post by: Blackwater Bee on June 14, 2012, 01:48:57 pm




 :-D
Quote from: hardwood on June 13, 2012, 07:22:58 pm


Now if you could figure a way to make them put a drop of honey into a jar before they can pass you'd make a fortune!

Scott
Title: Re: Honey Bee Counter
Post by: hydronics on June 15, 2012, 03:48:40 am
Quote from: BlueBee on June 13, 2012, 10:55:12 pm
How many mm of space is there between your IR LEDs and the Phototransistors?  It would really be cool to distinguish drones and the queen from the worker bees  :) 

The sensors are right on top of each other.... the board is almost 18mm wide... but the sensors are only ~7mm apart center to center.... differentiating between bees would be fun to try to design... potentially you could use the same sensor with a few extra components to provide a distance profile of the bee... kind of like scanning the top of the bee (bee passing under the sensor) and then using the different profiles to differentiate the types of bees check out the digital IR sensor board on the sparkfun website by searching digital QRE1113.. I don't have permission to provide links... pretty cool idea...
Title: Re: Honey Bee Counter
Post by: AliciaH on June 18, 2012, 12:48:40 pm
Very cool!
Title: Re: Honey Bee Counter
Post by: AllenF on June 18, 2012, 02:51:10 pm
That's cool.   Now can you get it to count SHB and moths also?   
Title: Re: Honey Bee Counter
Post by: triple7sss on June 18, 2012, 07:03:01 pm
That is a great idea and way cool!!

If we could just let the hive know when the "ins" and "outs" don't match at the end of the day then they could send out small search parties.  Or if more came in than went out they could a head count inside and see who wasn't supposed to be in there!
Title: Re: Honey Bee Counter
Post by: edward on June 18, 2012, 08:36:06 pm
cool  8-)
Title: Re: Honey Bee Counter
Post by: hydronics on June 24, 2012, 04:12:40 am
I've added some initial data... you can access the graphs from the original post above... cheers,
Title: Re: Honey Bee Counter
Post by: beekeeperookie on June 24, 2012, 08:43:19 pm
thats awesome
Title: Re: Honey Bee Counter
Post by: hydronics on June 27, 2012, 03:14:57 pm
Quote from: yockey5 on June 13, 2012, 10:07:13 am
So cool!
thx
Title: Re: Honey Bee Counter
Post by: the-ecohouse.com on June 29, 2012, 09:52:47 am
sign me up for one
Title: Re: Honey Bee Counter
Post by: desarata on July 29, 2012, 12:27:10 pm
Please put me on the list for one