🪬 Robotic Apiary
status: idea
As a more cost-effective solution for large apiaries, we want to reuse Robotic Beehive functionality and equip it with ability to move around the apiary to inspect hives on-demand or on-schedule.
Target audience
Challenges / Requirements
- weather-proof hives
- bee-safe hives
- movement control across hives
- cost-efficient
Vision
We’ll use an improvement over Robotic Beehive but have it movable between hives. Design is not set yet and its up for the team to decide on the architecture
Apiary - beehives traditionally are positioned in a line Source - https://beeswiki.com/what-is-an-apiary/
Ideation
Movement
| Move on rails | Move on wheels | |
|---|---|---|
| Pros | - simple and predictable movement | - hive positions can be random |
| Cons | - limited reach - hives need to be in line - costs more with larger apiaries | - need to stabilize the X-Y angles to have horizontal plane even |
Construction
| Monolithic | Distributed | |
|---|---|---|
| Pros | - simple installation, maintenance, setup - good weather protection | - can scale in amount of hives and in their height - cost effective - healthy |
| Cons | - colonies can infect each other - higher cost - loss of existing inventory | - more complex integration, maintenance |