Welcome to StephensApiary.com Sacramento, California USA
Contact Info: Stephen@StephensApiary.com
This is the Hivelogger.com IoT prototype - a suite of "Smart Sensors" for healthy honeybees
Monitoring honeybee behavior through climate and weight change smart-sensor technology enables active environmental and ecological survey. This “quantitative tool-set” produces historical records for researchers, educates the community, enhances security, and helps change management postures from reactive to proactive. This platform provides autonomous and stable weight, climate, and custom data acquisition in support of AI (Artificial Intelligence), MV (Machine Vision), and ML (Machine Learning) analytics.
Some additional benefits of this technology include:
- Improve the knowledge-base in ecological survey and honeybee behavior
- Support honey production forecasting and honey tampering investigations (HFCS fraud)
- Characterize and evaluate Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)
- Monitor related climate and environmental components (Environmental-canary in the coal-mine)
- Provide commercial operations with valuable Best Management Practice (BMP) tools
- Honeybee management and production - QA/QC & quarantine development tools
- Support of Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) – Actionable regulatory oversight
- Catalyst to Private/Public Partnerships – Pollination support, Leverage integrated rural infrastructure
- Support for Sustainable Collaborative Programs for Education & Community
- Catalyst for innovation and entrepreneurship – Integration of STEM & IoT into the community.
Below is a sample DAILY climate report showing real-time climate data including entry climate and comb temperatures from a beehive ( Sacramento, CA)
Below is a sample WEEKLY report showing real-time climate data including entry climate and comb temperatures from a beehive (Sacramento, CA)
Innovative Weight Change System
Climate Stable Scale
Soil / Matrix Lysimeter
This platform is being presented to business incubators, academia, and various government and regulatory interests.
The platform and Cyberkinetics have an ongoing collaborative relationship with the University of California. Hivelogger is a collaborator and graduate of the Agricultural Innovation Entrepreneurship Academy (AIEA) and participant in Big Bang Business Competitions through the UC Davis GRE/MBA School and the UC Davis Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Additionally, the platform has been under evaluation by the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS). Quarantine & Africanized Honeybees (AHB) support is one of the specific design elements of the platform. The innovative weight change system performs autonomously in variable climates and delivers precisions of < 1/10 of 1% of disposed mass. For a standard beehive of 25 lbs. in a variable climate this system can detect weight changes well under 20 grams!
This is an ideal solution for long-term climate exposed weight monitoring of any “shaped” hive or mass that cannot be moved or disturbed. The same innovative system can perform as a lysimeter and continuously monitor a large mass of soil or other matrix, while not restricting any fluid percolation through the mass.
Cyberkinetics promotes the benefits of geospatial informatics and survey by building collaborative relationships with information technology (IT) infrastructure. Quality Assurance (QA), Quality Control (QC), and Best Management Practices (BMPs) for agricultural operations are facilitated through a comprehensive and integrated regulatory oversight mission. Building a win-win bridge to teams that can benefit directly from this concept and provide valuable development feedback and commercialization mentorship, are our key objectives.
QUICK LINKS
Live Stream @ StephensApairy.com (Down for upgrade)
Archive of YouTube Live Streaming @ StephensApairy.com
24 hour - Live Hive Entrance View (platform credentials required)
Hivelogger- Executive Summary PDF Document
Stephen A. Engel CV PDF Document
http://www.linkedin.com/in/engelstephen Stephen's LinkedIn Profile
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stephen_Engel3 Stephen's Research
Stephen A. Engel - publications, contributions, and references :
United States Patent (USPTO) Allowances
US8771035 PDF Document - Apparatus for continuous weight monitoring of beehives
US8419501 PDF Document - Apparatus for continuous weight monitoring of beehives
Additional Applications Pending
Solution for automated bee colony weight monitoring, Agronomy Research 15(2), 585–593, 2017
PDF Document AgronomyResearchVol15nr2_2017
Are Honeybees Musicians? , The Journal Bee Culture June 2012
PDF Document The Journal Bee Culture June_2012
Colony Signaling from June 2012 Article
WAV Audio File - The Journal Bee Culture June 2012
A method for observing the vibroacoustic and seismic activity in a beehive , The Journal Bee Culture May 2011
PDF Document The Journal Bee Culture May2011
HiveSmack Audio File for May2011 Article
WAV Audio File - The Journal Bee Culture May2011
TNC SPECIAL PROJECTS 2018-2020
Wood Duck Nesting Box #23 with a Wild Honeybee Colony
Recovery from Cosumnes River Preserve with The Nature Conservancy
Here are a few brief YouTube clips from this project:
https://youtu.be/KrS5JzVy4nc - 1st Day of Recovery
https://youtu.be/BuzTcN_qrfE - Apron of Bees
https://youtu.be/OdiBAEJ3Q6A - Propolis Welding
Some additional "honeybee" links:
University of Latvia - ITAPIC - www.itapic.eu
University Würzburg, Germany - Hobos - https://www.hobos.de/en/
NASA HoneyBeeNet - https://honeybeenet.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Carl Hayden Bee Research Center, USDA-ARS
Center for Integrative Bee Research (CIBER) UC Riverside - http://ciber.ucr.acsitefactory.com/
Randy Oliver - ScientificBeekeeping.com