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Assessing (and aggregating) beehive health

Submitted by dsnopek on December 2, 2011 - 07:50
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Develop a mobile application that would allow users to do beehive inspections and send them "somewhere".  The somewhere could be a web site which aggregates bee hive health data or to a specific local expert, who will be able to look at the data and give advice.

 

  • Positive benefits:
    • Colony collapse disorder is a serious problem, affecting bee keepers world wide.  Collecting beehive health reports and aggregating the data might help get to the bottom of this still unsolved problem.
    • There are many more amateurs coming into bee keeping, than there are experts to advise them. This would allow people world-wide to get advice about their hives.
  • Feature suggestions:
    • Gather geolocation
    • Allow users to attach photos or videos of specific features of their hive
    • Provide links to photos or videos demonstrating things to look out for in the inspection
  • Subject Matter Expert: Charlie from beepods.com
    • Charlie has a hive inspection worksheet (ie. on paper). This could form the basis for the questions asked in the mobile application.
    • There might be a live beehive on the premises (at RHOK #6 Milwaukee) so that hackers can see these things in action
    • Charlie will be available at this event to answer questions and help the hacker team
User Stories: 

 

  • Beehive owner goes to her beehive for it's regular hive inspection.
  • She takes out her mobile phone, and walks through all the steps it tells her to do.  This includes taking a couple pictures and a short video.
  • The application warns her that something could be wrong with her hive (ex. possible parasite or disease) and that she should send her inspection to an expert.
  • She selects to send it to the regional expert in the area.
  • The expert is able to look at this hive inspection as well as the previous 3 inspections and is able to send advice about the next course of action.
Similar Projects and Resources: 

Beetight provides a similar service: https://www.beetight.com/

  • However, they don't provide inspection for top bar hives, which are the kind used by most amateurs. They are more geared towards people doing serious honey production operations. It is also a closed-source product.
Next Steps and Sustainability: 

Given the size of the problem, I think it's best to start with the mobile part.  How the data is collected and aggregated would be the next step.

Problem Definition Category: 
Agriculture
Urban
Event: 
Milwaukee, WI, U.S.A.

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