Zach
 
Call me,  we've tested a variety of scales for our research from manual to electronic in both hanging scale and platform configurations.  As you know, if you're using a forklift, you can even buy forklift scales that fit on the tines. You can use platform scales, but then you need a scale under each hive.  

We're currently beta testing platform scales that can be used under a hive OR a pallet that cost less than what you typically see on the market.  We've a partner in Europe who has recently developed a simple hive scale with communications at far less cost than is typically seen for this combination; although I've yet to test his scale for durability and accuracy.  I could arrange to do so and could get some for you to try.   From a business perspective, this is the year I and my partners are finally rolling  out electronics systems for sale.  Only last year did a key and affordable enabling technology appear.  It had much reduced size, power draw, and cost and had more than enough ability to acquire, store, process, and communicate data.  With that in hand, we revised our hand-held acoustic scanner, began Beta-testing them in commercial beekeeping operations, and we began building and testing Smart Hives for marketing world-wide.  This summer was our target for getting systems in place.  This fall, we will have the 2nd International Workshop on Bee and Hive Monitoring, Sept 17, at the University of Montana.  We've invited over 30 firms and researchers working in this area to participate.  Come out and bring your students.

Our own focus at the moment is a beta test in a commercial operation in the USA, using pallet scales that the can weigh 4-6 hives at the same time.  The weight range is sufficient to cover when the hives are fully loaded with a honey crop (doesn't top out), yet can discern when I place my cell phone on top of one of the 4-6 hives.  

Please beware - good scales that are accurate over a wide range, with good resolution, and that are going to be left outside all year round, need to be robust.  We have built scales using both hydraulic pressure sensors (vary too much with changes in temperature and particularily barometric pressure and altitude) and strain gauges (better accuracy, but the gauges must be temperature compensated, and many tend to be fragile).

The better scales have multiple sensors and integrate the feed from all of the sensors to adjust for imbalances in hive or pallet weight.  For example, our pallet scales use four sensors.  If you stand on any corner or in the middle of the pallet, it makes no difference in the weight the scale reports.

You're looking for reproducible results - not just rough estimates.  The scale that might work for a backyard beekeeper, who just wants to know what the hive weighs as a whole, is NOT the scale that you want for your research.  And all scales tend to drift with time, so be sure to have your students carry and use a standard weight to check scale accuracy every time they use it. Best to test before using, and after using.  If it has gone off-calibration during the day, then you need to re-weigh.

Beware of scales that have you tip up the hive, and then use a shim slipped under the hive - you get friction issues, and you're really not truly weighing the entire hive, especially if the honey is not evenly distributed.  If the scale looks flimsy with thin wires hanging out of it - it is going to be useless in a very short period of time.  These are great for the tinkerer or the curious, but not for your application.  

Also, having a patent on a new type of scale says nothing about it's quality or suitability.  We didn't bother to patent the hydraulic scale - just too iffy, although we reported the approach and the problems back in the mid- 1990s, placing it in the public domain.  Scales are scales, and the good ones use established technologies.  Not to say someone may have a break through one of these days, but at the moment, mechanical or strain gauges are the way to go.

My goal for both your application and that of commercial beekeepers, plus some hobby beekeepers who want professional equipment, is to provide scales appropriate for one, four, or six colonies.  Our base model has to be read at the hive - there's a large display visible in daylight.  I can ship you some of those, now.  These units are ok if the hives are in your backyard or a nearby apiary, and you have AC power at the site.  The next step up uses some form of wireless data transfer -  just walk up to the hive(s) with your Smart Phone or Tablet and have the wireless or Bluetooth communications turned on.  We can have the unit automatically stream the data onto it.  Currently, we can do this with Windows-based phones, and are working on Android.  Sorry, I-Phone users, that's farther down the line of our priorities.

Our current focus is transmitting the data via Satellite or Cell Phone service to your PC, cell phone, etc. with an immediate Alert if something significant changes - hives quickly  losing weight, suddenly gaining weight, or if the hives start moving.  We've been using Satellite communications for years.  There just are not enough areas in western orchards, croplands, and prairie regions with cell service, except maybe in CA.   And, the cell systems and protocols used in the USA are not the same as those used in most other countries.  Our satellite service has good coverage for most of the developed world, and the communications protocols are the same everywhere.  We're hoping to wring out the last kinks in communications from the pallet hive to satellite to our PCs and phones this week.  The scales weren't designed for satellite hook-up, so we had to design and build a communications interface, and we've been working with our satellite service provider to fine tune the software.

The trick here is an affordable communications service, which we can now provide.  We can give you satellite communications at monthly and annual  prices comparable to cell phone service costs for most areas.  If you do have good cell service, we can now provide a sender unit that will  use cell, but only for US at this time.  

Our first units go into commercial testing this summer - with a report at the meeting in September in Missoula.  We've had one of the walk up and read the display type scales running under a pallet of four hives in Missoula since before the last snows stopped falling.  I'm not ready to launch sales yet, but hope to be ready by this fall.  First, we need to see some of these units being used by beekeepers who want to know how their hives are doing in another state, eliminating the need to drive there to see.  If the scales hold up and function as planned - always an issue during Beta-testing - why else do it?, we'll start selling them.

Finally, if you go this route, regardless of who provides you the scales, check their experience.  

There are some good, read-at-the hive scales, being produced and sold by bee equipment and scale equipment suppliers in Europe and the US, and possibly other parts of the world.  There are some good communications  systems that offer a scale available from cell and satellite providers located around the world - but be careful, if their primary expertise is in electronics and communications, not bees, they may not have the scale you need. 

I've seen gorgeous data display systems with cell or satellite service being offered, hooked to a cheap weighing system, that is only likely to survive for more than a year in a mild climate.  And, I've seen electronics engineers offering sensors that won't last in a beehive.  We've been doing this since 1995, and many sensors that one could add, like temperature or humidity or infra-red may either result in the bees literally covering them over or tearing them out, or data that really doesn't tell you what you  thought you'd learn.  

Take humidity -  RH sensors in a hive tend to be unstable, bees coat them with propolis, and bottom-line  - the books have it wrong, in highly humid areas of the USA, bees didn't bother to try to reduce the humidity - or should I say, maybe they were unable to have much effect.  We found bees can increase humidity in dry climates, but they don't seem to mind it wet in the hive.  So, you've got an RH sensor and live anywhere where the ambient RH is likely to be high, doesn't make much sense to use one of these more costly sensors, that is likely to fail in a few days, and even if it continues to work, shows you that the RH is pegged at over 90%, most of the time.  On the other hand, temperature sensors provide useful data and if you know how, you can place them in hives and bees won't cover them over.

So Zach, drop me a line at [log in to unmask] and I'll send my cell  phone number to you.  We can help you out.

J.J. Bromenshenk
Bee Alert
Missoula, Mt
 


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