Electronic Bee swarm trap!!??

Hi guys

a little help here please. Some one must have done this before!!?? does any one know if it is open source somewhere??

well the season is now over, |I saw the drones all being kicked out. So now they are just building up stores for winter.. if you have not taken your honey, it's too late!! (well with my style of natural beekeeping it is)

So now for winter projects..

To have the best chance of catching a wild swarm, I will need stacks of swarm traps in the spring!!
So I figure, if I had some sort of electronic device to call me once it becomes populated.
this can work two ways , passive or active.


Passive would be a trap with a cell phone and it would,  text  , (sms) me.
Active , I would drive round to within radio range of the traps and "PING" them to see if there has been a change.

so now the research begins.

thanks again Guys

Kevi H

I cannot remember seeing any with such a system . But I fear although it is a good idea you would need a good cost vs benefit argument  to make it work . Such types of devices are cheap with mass production and conversely expensive for just a few . Since I build my hives for very little to justify the cost would be difficult .
I remember a chap over at Biobees trying to design a system to capture swarms automatically once they left the hive . I am not sure he ever got it to work however as drones kept clogging the workings

David

thank you for the reply

I am thinking of contacting my lokal makerspace to see if they cant help.

cheers again
Kevi

Something like the following would probably be what you are looking for. However, as David mentioned the cost/benefit of these types of systems would be quite unfavorable.
http://www.wildlifecontrolsupplies.com/animal/Trap-Alert-Packages/TA-5UK.html

Hi John

thank you for that!! I have email d them to see if they can do one for swarm traps. I am no bee expert but I would think that once a swarm moves in one would then get a constant temperature of ?? but a constant temperature.. and that constant temperature can then activate the alert signal??

the question is now if this is the case what is the temperature of a swarm that has just moved in?

or what other system could one use ?? buzzing noise as an alert?? perhaps

thans again for that

Kevi

OK so the next Question IS:
the QUESTION I have is : what is the best "activating key"

however I want to know as soon as the bees move in so I can move them whilst they are still in the moving mood, to reduce trauma or what what.

So I am looking into some ideas of electronic activated remote alarms.



would a temperature be the best?
so if a swarm moves in the temperature would then rise to?? and stay constant for ?? time , then this would set the alarm.

Or sound, or movement
or block a beam
or mass of trap increases??

I think the temperature sensor would use the least amount of power? but I am no expert.

OK I know some will ask why all this money on a bee trap??

1. I work a 9 to 5 job
2. I am organising private land and do not want to be over intrusive.
3. I intend putting up quite a few over a large area.
4. I would like to house them with in 24 hours of them moving in
5. with bee packages costing £200.00 + - I don't have to have to many success to justify the cost, and given the choice, I would rather spend the money on trapping a local swarm then buying some random swarm??

realy hope some one can help

thank you all in advance

Kevi

I wonder about weight . A swarm would weigh a couple of kilo .. This could trigger a contact and set of an alarm ( mobile phone switch on ? )

David

Hi David

I have been looking at this system:

http://www.trap-alert.com/login?next=/

I was thinking about wait, however swarm traps are normal , jammed into a tree crook, or strapped on or so on,, I suppose a ceiling inside with a micro switch??

thans again for the reply

Kevi

ceiling inside with a micro switch that conects to a cheap mobile phone sounds possible
After all thats how terrorists set off remote controled car bombs ( dont panic folks I am not giving away any secrets this is well known stuff )

David

Kevin,
I too had a similar problem with not being able to check my swarm boxes consistently and regularly.  What I needed was "time".  If a swarm moved into the box, it was okay for it to set in the tree for days, sometimes nearly a week trying to get to the weekend before I could check on it. I knew that the bees weren't going to wait to start setting up housekeeping in the box.  I built swarm boxes that were pretty much miniature versions of the hive style the bees would eventually be in when I brought them home.  Be it Warre, Top Bar or Langstroth swarm boxes, they have bars or frames in the box and the swarms start building on the frames and bars that I will transfer into the permanent hive.  What is great about these swarm boxes is that I can bring them home and set them right on the hive stand where their permanent hive will be and allow them to orientate from the swarm box for a few days before transferring the bars or frames into their hive.  I too have a busy schedule and in the past I have had swarm boxes setting on a hive stand in my apiary for a week or two before I could get the bees transferred into their hive and having that "time" is really a blessing- for the bees and me.

Ernie                  

I just used hive bodies and frames with a light top and bottom. If you don't get to them, for a few weeks it's no problem. I wouldn't put them very high up.

Trapping is fun, but if you really want bees, just catching them seems more efficient to me. Once people know you're a beekeeper, people will tell you when they see one. I've also advertised on a Facebook ad group. I had more swarms calls than I needed last year. I've only caught one swarm in traps over 2 years and around ten traps a year. I used either lemongrass oil or pheromone lures. All sizes of traps and heights. I know some people will sometimes get one in each trap or more. I've caught around six swarms without a trap.

I've been wanting to do a trap out of a beetree. I had more hives than I wanted last spring, so didn't try it. I wish I'd have done it. I lost three hives. One swarmed today, but I caught it. Another was about too. I set up an empty hive with lemongrass oil to hopefully catch it. The wax moths are horrid this year. I thought they couldn't take out a healthy hive. But at least two of them were doing great a month ago. Sorry, I'm not good at staying on topic.

Not to worry Ken,
   It's BEES! my friend. When we get together to talk about bees, we seldom need more of a topic then that.
I do have to agree with both of your points.  Using old hive bodies swarm boxes do get a bit heavy to be running up and down a ladder with and more swarms have come my way over the phone.  I go and get them with one of my "time" swarm boxes.  I have had swarms setting up housekeeping in a swarm box in my apiary while I was building a hive for them.  
Over the years I have discovered there is no such thing as too many hives.  If I start worrying about how many I have, I wait until next spring to make any decisions. Any extra hives in the spring are in huge demand.    

Ernie Schmidt  
 

It is an interesting idea, but I think ultimately you will want to get your feet on the ground and check on your traps. Depending on your trap style they can stay quite happily in a trap for a few weeks to a few months - you don't have to know the instant a swarm has moved in. Also, if you are planning on using a pheromone lure they will need refreshing periodically anyway, you will need to get out there to do that too.

Many people put swarm traps up in the gardens of friends and family. That way if you get a hit they can spot it and call you.

I'm a maker with lots of projects under my belt: temperature loggers, motion sensors, low power microcontrollers to monitor and run my aquaponics greenhouse.  
I'd love to make some of these for everyone.  I don't have bees yet, but I want to make a top bar hive.

I don't think a radio system like you mention would be very expensive.  Maybe $40 in parts?  You could transmit temperature, humidity, motion sensor info, max / min temperature, to a handheld device with a little lcd screen to read the info from the hive.  Maybe we could even figure out a bee counter?

See my YouTube channel , "theRainHarvester" for some of my electronics projects.  If you're still interested, maybe I could make it for you for the cost in parts, in hopes that I could sell more in the future.  (I was recently thinking of making an automated cricket house to monitor temperature and humidity with a radio signal alarm to notify me, and this seems similar).

Check on an Arduino forum. they are always on the lookout for new projects.
Something like this could be easily modified.
https://www.instructables.com/id/Honey-Bee-Counter-II/