Within Latvian Council of Science grant Nr. 08.2179 „ Detection of preswarming condition of bee colony based on dynamics of microclimate” a measurement and observation system for two bee cvolonies was built.
Developed beehive observation system consists of 1) control subsystem, 2) measuring (temperature and relative humidity) subsystem and 3) video recording subsystem. Video monitoring of the front of the beehive (video camera 1) as well as environment (video camera 2) is switched on when untypical changes of microclimate are detected. That allows to find out reasons of each particular case of microclimate changes (swarming, direct sunshine, rain, strong wind, noise or other reasons). Our particular interest was to see if we can identify preswarmin, swarming or afterswarm stage in the colony. Jurijs Meitalovs based his bachelors work on this Project and received a prize for best bachelors wirk in IT Branch in Latvia in 2009.
