Robotic Beehive

Why

To solve 👁️Observability of bee colony, 💪🏻Physical labor, 🎒Challenging to become a new beekeeper, 🗃️Ugly beehives problems, we’re building a single-colony robotic beehive, capable of automating inspections.

Vision and Positioning

Single-colony robot costs too much (>2000 EUR) to be cost-efficient in large scales. Because of this, it is unlikely that 👨🏻‍🚒Industrial beekeepers or 🧑🏻‍🌾Farmers (that have >20 beehives) will buy it. Instead, we are targeting people that value exterior 🔪Design to compliment their brand.

https://www.honeyflow.com/ as example of tehnological beehive, selling for 700 EUR

President Alar Karis harvesting honey from the Kadriorg Palace beehives. (Photo: Office of the President) An example of complimentary brand

Clients / Target audience

👨🏻‍💼Potential new beekeepers ← as a shiny and safe beehive that can also teach them beekeeping

🧑🏻‍🏫Urban beekeepers ← as a way to research how bees are behaving and avoid disturbing neighbours

👩🏻‍🦱Tech scale-up companies ← for office roof as a brand building hardware and a in-house honey perk

How

Main flow is to:

extract hive frame using 🦾Robotics

take photos from both sides

upload to the 📱Web-app where it will be processed for health status

Functional requirements / features

Features

feature name	Assigned to	Blocked by	Blocking	Priority	Status	Tags	Tasks	billing plan	estimate	goal / problem solved	impact = priority %	verticality
📷Real-time frame scanning			📷Full hive inspection	12	Idea	IoTRoboticsbackendfrontend		5-robotic-beehive	5	👁️Observability of bee colony	60	vertical
⛔Close mechanised hive entrance in case of hornet attack		⚠️Hornet attack detection		11	Idea	CADIoT		5-robotic-beehive	7	💢Hornet attacks	80	vertical
⛔Close mechanised hive entrance in case of robbing behaviour		⚠️Robbing behaviour alert based on bee counter		8	Idea	CADIoT		5-robotic-beehive	5	💢Robbing state	40	vertical
⛔Mechanically reduce hive entrance in case of high wind				3	Idea	CADIoTRobotics		5-robotic-beehive	5	🌪️Not weather-resistant hives	15	vertical
🦾Robotic frame reordering				2	Idea	CADIoTMLRoboticsbackendfrontend		5-robotic-beehive	13	💪🏻Physical labor	20	vertical
🐝Bee specialization classification				1	Idea	ML		5-robotic-beehive	7	👁️Observability of bee colony	10	vertical
🎮Connecting robot to web-app UX				0	Idea			5-robotic-beehive
🎮Client-side app with UI (manual override mode)				0	Idea	CADIoTRoboticsbackendfrontend		5-robotic-beehive
🔊Audio-interface (to talk with bees)				0	Idea	IoTbackend		5-robotic-beehive		🗃️Ugly beehives
🎤6-channel audio monitoring				0	Idea	IoT		5-robotic-beehive		🧶Swarming, 💢Robbing state
🚁Ventilation control				0	Idea	CADIoT		5-robotic-beehive		❄️Overwintering collapse, 💧Poor hive ventilation		vertical
♨️Hive heating	Aleksei Zaitsev			0	Idea	CADIoTbackend		5-robotic-beehive		🦀Infestation of Varroa mite, ❄️Overwintering collapse		vertical
🐝Nursing video analysis				0	Idea	MLbackendfrontend		5-robotic-beehive		👁️Observability of bee colony		vertical
🧪Automatic acid treatment against varroa				0	Idea	CADIoTbackendfrontend		5-robotic-beehive		🦀Infestation of Varroa mite		vertical
🍭Automatic sugar syrup feeder				0	Idea	CADIoTbackendfrontend		5-robotic-beehive		🍽️Colony starvation		vertical
📷Full hive inspection		📷Real-time frame scanning		0	Idea	CADIoTMLRoboticsbackendfrontend	Redesign @Robotic Beehive with more CAD details - @Robotics	5-robotic-beehive		💪🏻Physical labor, 💪🏻Unscalable work, 👁️Time-consuming inspections		vertical
🔌Energy autonomy (battery + solar cells + wind)				0	Idea	IoT		5-robotic-beehive		🌲Distant locations		vertical
🦾Robotic insertion of new frames				0	Idea	CADIoTMLRoboticsbackendfrontend		5-robotic-beehive		💪🏻Physical labor		vertical
🦾Robotic frame isolation & extraction				0	Idea	CADIoTMLRoboticsbackendfrontend		5-robotic-beehive	40	💪🏻Unscalable work, 💪🏻Physical labor	7	vertical

Non-functional requirements

Extraction should happen without disturbing the bees, exposing them to elements or risking people around.

Non-functional robotic beehive product requirements

Tags	Name
must	able to adjust to frame size and hive section size of customer’s choice (Langstroth, Farrar, National etc)
must	should not harm human operator - @Regulations and Compliance (ex. breaking hands)
must	not kill 🐝 bees [squashing with moving mechanisms, cause hypothermia, open to stealing or attacks via cracks]
must	be able to extract frame if bees glued it with wax
must	not 🔥 ignite from overheating, sun, electrical wiring etc. Beewax is highly flammable
must	move frame that is full of honey (4kg)
must	be repairable (modular, hot-swappable)
must	be offline-first. Provide data to beekeeper without internet or cloud account
must	provide manual on-site control over frame movement
must	fallback to safe mode on power loss
must	fallback to safe mode on internet connection loss
should	allow manual extraction/replacement of specific frame by beekeeper, without opening the hive (for cross-family resource balancing, honey separation etc)
should	take into account bee morphology for material design (bee’s grip)
should	container box vary in size depending on frame size (langstroth, estonian, farrar, dadan etc)
should	take photos in the dark / poor lighting
should	not be affected by bees flying
should	survive winter temperatures of -30C
should	survive direct sunlight of +60C weather
should	not disturb bees or beekeeper with noise (occasional 55db max)
should	not have high-power (220V) voltage cords inside the hive near the bees
should	not have chemically/aroma active compounds (plastic) inside the hive
should	avoid (cold) metal exposed to bees inside the hive
should	keep hive internals at 50-60% humidity (ventilation on top)
should	design bee movements to be efficient while navigating inside the hive
should	do inspection without major interruption in colony life (one frame at a time)
should	not do inspections of the hive at cold (winter) time
should	have gradual lighting of the frame while taking a photo to not blind/affect bees
should	not risk bee healthy by having multiple colonies together in one congested space
should	have rounded areas to decrease risk of human getting hurt
could	survive water submersion (floods, very heavy rains)
could	backward-compatible, follow existing beekeeping traditions. Ex. frame sizes, boxes etc
could	do automatic pest control [remotely controlled]
could	measure and send audio of hive internals (4-channel) and externals (2-channel)
could	measure and send level of external illumination
could	record a video or stream of the hive frame side
could	get rid of fallen varroa mites on the hive bottom