TECH HELPING BEES
A Health Monitor For Honey Bees
1/3 OF OUR FOOD DEPENDS ON BEES
More than honey! Without bees we don’t have watermelons, cashews, cucumbers, apples, mangoes, avocados, almonds, apricots, cherries, pears, peaches, nectarines, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries to name a few. Not to mention beef or dairy. Guess what pollinates the alfalfa and clover grass the cows eat?
42% OF BEE COLONIES DIED IN 2014
Since 2006 beekeepers have reported colony losses exceeding 30%, which is unsustainable. To make up for losses, beekeepers divide colonies (called splitting), to force the bees to make 2 weak colonies from 1 strong one. But more weak colonies leads to higher loss rates, so there’s no stable bee population in sight.
EYESONHIVES HELPS BEEKEEPERS
We’re so passionate about this issue we built a technology from scratch to better understand what was happening at bee hives, alert beekeepers to changes, and help them understand their bees with software that measures hive activity, and gives video playback and alerts through a web app.
CONNECTS BEEKEEPERS TO THEIR BEES
VIDEO AND DATA FROM THE BEEHIVE
EyesOnHives uses a camera and computer to visually monitor what goes on at the bee hive all day, every day. Activity is measured by tracking the number of flying bees.
ADVANCED TECH THAT'S EASY TO USE
Colony activity patterns are tracked over time using computerized video analysis. Hours of video is automatically translated into an easy to understand, visual, real-time summary for beekeepers.
MEASURES THE HIVE AS A WHOLE
A key insight is that it’s not just the ‘count’ of individual bees that matters, it’s their flight behavior. EyesOnHives doesn’t just look at bees, it measures flight behavior of the hive as a superorganism!
CREATED BY AND FOR BEEKEEPERS
When Paul, a beekeeper of 40+ years asked us to count bees coming out of a hive because he couldn't check on it frequently enough himself - now that bees are so vulnerable to colony collapse - we were inspired to help.
CROWD SOURCED DATA TO HELP BEEKEEPERS
Every beehive contributes data to the EyesOnHives analytics platform and improves the system for all beekeepers. You can support the effort directly as a beekeeper, or backer.
YOUR BEES ON YOUR iPHONE, REALLY!
The EyesOnHives Analytics web app, is PC / Mac / iOS / Android / Linux compatible
FINALLY, DATA SCIENCE TO HELP THE BEES
One of the most exciting things we found was what we call the "orientation spike" in data.
In a healthy hive we see an activity spike mid-afternoon as new field bees take their first 'orientation' flights.
Sick hives, or hives that are under attack, show different activity signatures.
Graphing the average daily bee activity over time shows how a hive is growing.
It turns out the flight activity is an indication of hive health as it grows and gives an early warning if something is wrong.
It feels pretty great to save an entire colony of creatures. No more finding they've all died because they didn't get help.
VIDEO MAKES DATA EASY TO UNDERSTAND
KEEPING AN EYE ON BEE HIVES
Video, timelapse and beehive activity data is available through the web app, which is PC / Mac / iOS / Android / Linux compatible. Beekeepers can see videos of interest, if anything unusual occurred at their hives, and quickly notice trends.
SHARING BEES AND KNOWLEDGE
EyesOnHives makes it easy to share with others to promote awareness and knowledge of bee health and activity patterns. Turns out some pretty surprising things happen in front of a beehive too.
WATCH WHAT THE BEES ARE DOING
Skilled beekeepers look at hive activity and know the bees need assistance. But too often problems are not seen until it is too late and the colony is lost. We asked 'what if all beekeepers could continuously monitor their hive?" Now they can!
VIDEO AT THE HIVE ENTRANCE
Storch's At The Hive Entrance catalogs "How to know what happens inside the hive by observation on the outside". We were inspired. EyesOnHives allows beekeepers to use this same visual intuition remotely.
FIELD TESTED FOR OVER A YEAR
We started tracking hives over a year ago and have already run a successful pilot program with local beekeepers, learning more and building the beginnings of a community along the way.
JOIN US
BEES MAKE LIFE MORE AWESOME
We’re beekeepers ourselves and believe that sustainable solutions embrace the principles of permaculture rather than pesticides. EyesOnHives gives beekeepers better data to make smart decisions, and help keep our pollinators around.
WE AND THE BEES NEED YOU
With your help we can start collecting data from many regions across the US and eventually the world. The ability to use video analytics to issue alerts and predict hive outcomes is in its infancy. More data is needed to help correlate specific hive diseases, pests, and bee behavior to the hive activity measurements.
JOIN IF YOU'RE A BEEKEEPER
If you are a beekeeper, EyesOnHives gives you greater access and connection to your bees, while saving you time. Become a member of our community of citizen scientists and watch videos of bees, see trending data from other hives, make comments, and help identify anomalies to improve the EyesOnHives alerts.
NOT YET A BEEKEEPER? YOU CAN HELP
Join the community by becoming a Social Bee supporter. Alternatively, sponsor a beekeeper by purchasing a system that we place through a recognized beekeeping association.
AS SEEN IN
RESERVE A SYSTEM
REQUIREMENTS
EyesOnHives is focused on backyard and rooftop beekeepers. The system does not disturb your colony, require modifications to your hive, or take hours to set up. Simply place the unit one to two feet away from the hive and point at the hive entrance. The system uses Wi-Fi to communicate alerts, upload video, and report trending data. Setup requires access to 120V power and a usable Wi-Fi signal at the hive.
Power and WiFi are needed!
All units except Model Bee include 1 year access to the web application and analytics platform, which is accessible on any internet enabled computer or smartphone (iOS/Android), and is where you can see and graph all historical activity data. Approximately 14 days of archived videos are available for on demand viewing. After the first year we hope you'll want to stay on the platform, which is planned to retail for $10/month as your Netflix for bees. Thank you for your support!
Our goal is to grow a network of connected hives. The data generated benefits every beekeeper, since everyone can benefit from shared learning.
Please support our project, and share your comments and feedback!