Nynke Blömer and Lynn Dicks (University of Cambridge) applied the BEEP platform (app and BEEP base) for bumblebee research. Together with the BEEP team they designed a special version of the BEEP base for that purpose, basically by removing the steel frame and fixing the weight sensor (loadcell) directly to the bumblebee colony box. See here below the poster by Nynke and Lynn.
Download the PDF version of the poster.
What do you want to see next?
A big thanks to Pensoft Publishers for creating this infographic!
What do you want to see next?
The BEEP webapp is designed to allow beekeepers to keep honeybee colonies as healthy as possible and researchers to collect high quality data. To achieve this BEEP compiled highly structured, easy to understand and easy to use data categories. Note that synonyms for data categorisation are: data model, data structure, data taxonomy and ontology. Desk research and an intensive 'mindmapping' exercise resulted in the hierarchical tree structure shown below.
The hierarchy is important to be able to make the structure easy to use. An example: Bee colonies have specific characteristics and may get into trouble. So 'Colony' is the first branch and a second major branch is 'Disorder'. The subbranches contains required information about these disorders and what the beekeeper or researcher has seen or done. And the other main branches are 'Food' i.e. the food status in the hive, 'Weather' and 'Production' of e.g. honey. See the five main branches here below:
How is it used in practice? In the BEEP webapp, users can select items to include in their inspection checklist which they use to enter data about a colony in a specific hive, apiary and on a specific date. A default list of categories is available and all users can change this to fit their needs at any time. See below an example of one branch with categories. In this case: Colony > Brood > Status. First the simplest version with one data field: is brood present at the time of inspection of not.
And below with all available data categories under Colony > Brood > Status. The user can select which ones to show and which ones to hide.
The data category terms are as short as possible.The data categories are translated in various languages as can be see in the (free to use, open source) BEEP webapp. Terms may be repeated in the tree structure. For example the category 'Frames'. But if they do, they have the same meaning. To facilitate the use of the terms as well as the translation a list with definitions for each term is available in this spreadsheet. See a screenshot of the first rows here below.
For more information please contact Marten, BEEP's data architect
On 22-02-2022 BEEP held a community event for BEEP users. Eight presenters gave a short presentation for the 120 participants across the globe. Marten Schoonman (BEEP) started with an overview of the BEEP app, base and plans for the future. Frank Linton (Colonymonitoring.com) followed with an overview and update on hive monitoring developments. Zeynep Ülgezen (Wageningen University & Research) presented the B-GOOD honeybee research WUR’s role in it. Diren Senger (University of Bremen) spoke about the Bee Observer citizen science project and zoomed in on data analysis and anomaly detection. Thorsten Gurzan (beelogger.de) followed with a talk on the open source platform Beelogger and how it is integrated with the open source BEEP beekeeping app. Marco van Hees (Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences) presented the use of BEEP platform in Higher Education Institutions and vocational beekeeping training. Bas Sprengers (Beekeeper and biologist) talked (and asked questions) about floral resources and doing calculations on those resources. Finally, Eddy van der Geest (‘techno beekeeper’) shared his approach to the analysis of beehive weight data transformation for easier interpretation and comparison.
The videos of the presentations can be found in this Youtube Playlist.
For all those who have bought a BEEP base or those who are curious how it works. A brand new installation video that takes you through the steps, from opening the box to installing the base under the hive.
The next production batch is planned for this summer. If you want to be sure of a BEEP base, let us know how many you would like to order and we will keep you updated! With enough interest, we can advance the production process.
On Tuesday, October 6th 2020, Marten Schoonman presented on the 4th International Bee and Hive Monitoring Conference. In his presentation he talks about the BEEP platform, our open source monitoring platform. You can view the presentation below!
In juli 2020 stond BEEP in PCM (Personal Computer Magazine) in de 'koplopers' rubriek. Stichting BEEP en de BEEP base worden in een 7-pagina tellend artikel uitgelicht. Marten Schoonman, een van de mede-oprichters van BEEP, vertelt in een interview meer over de achtergrond van de stichting, de ideeën en de uitwerkingen. Hij gaat in op het belang van informatie voor imkers zodat ze tijdig en juist in kunnen spelen op de situatie waar de bijen in verkeren. De BEEP base biedt imkers de mogenlijkheid om dat te doen. De meetgegevens van gewicht, temperatuur en geluid zijn in grafieken terug te vinden in de BEEP app en kunnen vanuit daar worden geïnterpreteerd. Zo heeft de imker een zicht op de bijen, ook vanuit huis.
Benieuwd naar het hele artikel van Jolijn de Rooij? Klik hier om het te lezen.
On January 31st, Pim was one of the speakers at the The Things Conference in Amsterdam. The Things Network (TTN) organises the conference worldwide. The central theme is LoRaWAN and its opportunities. The conference is visited by an international audience that is interested in the innovation made possible by the usage of LoRa in new product. Products like the BEEP base.
Pim presented the BEEP base that works on the TTN network. Through this network, the BEEP base sends measurement data from the hive to the BEEP app via LoRa. This gives the beekeeper insight in the status of the honeybee. In this way, the bee colonie tells the beekeeper what is going on. The beekeeper knows how the bees are doing by checking the BEEP app and can decide if it is needed to visit the apiary.
View Pim's presentation here.
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