Kickstarter pre-launch info link
https://monolyths.kickoffpages.com/
- Sign up, share, it’s really easy
- How I built the Tesla of Honey Bee Hives
- Why Should You Care about Technology in Beekeeping?
- 40% of Honey Bees died last winter, This is what I am doing to help Bees Everywhere
- Technology In Beekeeping: What I am developing and seeking funding for
- Tesla of Beekeeping
- Path to a working prototype
- Connecting it to the grid
- Power supply
- Final thoughts and a call for help
Tesla of Beekeeping
I love technology when it’s used to solve real world problems. A good example of this is the Tesla electric vehicle, which has the main purpose “to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy”. Besides the environmental impact, they also will save tens of thousands of drivers’ lives each year. They use technology to help with climate change, pollution, and hazardous driving conditions.
They inspired me to set out to build a smart hive system to accelerate the beekeeping world to be one where the phrase “I don’t know” is banished to antiquity.
Using first principles I wanted to build was an all-in-one smart hive that monitors and watches many different signs to help figure out the health of the hive anytime, anywhere, and to make “I don’t know” a thing of the past.
I cannot tell you how often over the years someone has told me I’m wrong. That what I wanted to create is not possible.Well, guess what? They were wrong. I built it.
I kept reading about how autonomous cars, like Tesla, were going to save lives, and so I wanted to use similar machine learning and technology approaches to bear against the many bee problems.
Tesla and Elon are famous for using first principles to break things down to simple components and then build them back up. I use the same strategy here.
Tesla Tech + Beekeeping Tech = ? Tell me what you think that mash-up would look like. Or subscribe to my newsletter for unique before-launch peaks at what I’ve built to see my vision.
Subscribe to my newsletter, and easily share this with 5 of your friends, for unique before-launch perks.
Take-Aways
- Raspberry Pi + sensors and monitoring technology + next gen hive = Crude Prototype.
- Wood is bad. Metal with special insulation will protect against extreme weather.
- Wifi /IoT lets us connect the hive to the cloud and thus our phones.
- Tech needs energy, we will meet these needs through solar & rechargeable batteries.
See the specific parts and have an exclusive look through signing up for the newsletter and telling your friends.
Working Prototype
Through my digging, and acceleration through my podcast, I’ve met great scientists that helped me in understanding the problems on a deeper level in gathering valuable data that can influence researchers and beekeepers around the world.
This led me to design a prototype with Raspberry Pi centered monitoring and sensory systems to see what is going on at any time via my phone or web browser.
The end goal is probably not to use Raspberry pi tech, but first principles made it’s cheapness and basic effectiveness as a prototype hard to beat.
From there, I looked into advanced insulation materials to see about improving the old, cheap wood design.
Turns out, it doesn’t take much to improve upon that.
Also, wood has a moisture holding problem that is suspected to be a major cause of hive loss in winter. (read more here on winterizing problems for bees)
Needless to say, I quickly saw the advantages of using metal over wood, with additional insulation running inside the walls.
This creates an environment unrivaled in modern beekeeping that turns a bee hive into a bee home, which is lighter, stronger, and overall better for the bees.
This creates an environment unrivaled in modern beekeeping that turns a bee hive into a bee home
Connection
Imagine living through the 2018s winter again in a wooden box huddled together with your family and friends like penguins.
In my homeland of Northern Illinois, it got as cold as Antarctica. Sounds horrible!
Keeping with this scenario, if you needed help, you would want to be able to contact someone right away.
I looked at many different ways to connect the hive to the grid, so we can access it anywhere.
The easiest solution is to add wifi for the local backyard use and/or IoT technology for remote location monitoring.
Either of these basically allow you to sync up what’s going on in your Ask Smart Hive to be able to know what’s going on in real time, anywhere. The figure to the right shows visually how it works.
Power
With all of this technology in place, being able to power it was the next challenge.
Additionally, I believe in keeping with the theme of doing things right vs quick, easy, or cheap.
From silly to serious:
- Nuclear Power (a bit overkill)
- Hydro power (hives near running water)
- Cord to house (cords, and doesn’t help with remote)
- Batteries (would need to be rechargeable /recyclable)
- Solar (concerns about places without a lot of sun)
I quickly decided on a combination of solar power and rechargeable batteries with the option for physical hook-up. It can be expensive, but overall better for the environment, the bees, and is easy on bees, beekeepers, bee researchers alike.
Picture of solar power + beehive = decentralized
Final
In the end, everything down to what type of clamp to use to hold parts together were held to the hard scrutiny of what is best for the bees, then what was best for beekeepers and bee researchers.
We are stuck in a world with complex issues, but this one, the one of the bees, beekeepers, and bee researchers can be solved with your help.
The future of beekeeping is here and now. If you would take just 10 seconds, you can help make it happen.
Soon there will be a Kickstarter to help fund this project from prototype phase to production. I have a clear vision, and team to build this.
I cannot do this alone.
Help me, help the bees, and help the beekeeping community
Share this with five of your friends, and get signed up for the Kickstarter updates (special unique exclusive content through that channel).
Feel free to DM me. I’m always up for talking about bees!
Kickstarter pre-launch info link
https://monolyths.kickoffpages.com/
- Sign up, share, it’s really easy
How I built the Tesla of Honey Bee Hives
Why Should You Care about Technology in Beekeeping?
40% of Honey Bees died last winter, This is what I am doing to help Bees Everywhere