Professional Beekeepers

What Australian beekeepers can expect of hive sensors

2026-06-04T10:49:56+10:00Lastest Research, Managing your hives, Pollination|

Core beekeeping practices have remained largely unchanged since the development of the movable hive frame in the 1800s. Particularly, manual inspections of the hive contents have remained the primary method for evaluating hive condition and identifying and addressing diseases and pests like mites and beetles. In the last decade however, hive sensors that promise to provide remote data on hive condition have emerged. Many beekeepers remain hesitant to adopt hive sensors in Australia. Our work, sponsored by Hort Innovation and Macquarie University, aimed to determine the needs and expectations of the growing pollination and beekeeping industries regarding the use of hive sensors. We conducted surveys and interviews with amateur and commercial beekeepers to identify the main barriers to the adoption of sensors, and perceptions of their costs and benefits. We also tested a range of hive sensors in our hives at Macquarie University. We were able to determine areas for improvement, usefulness and precision of various sensors. Here are our recommendations to beekeepers and hive sensor manufacturers.  Hive sensors accuracy  [...]

Monitoring hives for better pollination: how it works

2024-09-19T10:37:01+10:00Managing your hives, Pollination|

Precision agriculture or “AgTech” is well known from fruit and vegetables producers, but it has only recently started to make its way into beekeeping. Hive sensors or “smart hives” may well help solve the pollination crisis. Pollination services are crucial for many growers, but hive supply is often low and their hive represents a significant proportion of production costs. Using hive sensors may help beekeepers improve the health of bee colonies and reduce management costs. This could increase hive supply. The provision of information about bee colonies to growers could help improve the element of trust central to pollination contracts. The field of beehive monitoring is new. We reviewed the scientific literature to determine how applicable this scientific knowledge is [...]

What are the best tools to evaluate honey bee health?

2024-08-07T11:39:27+10:00Managing your hives, Nutrition, Pests and diseases|

The past years have not been easy for beekeepers and for growers who rely on honey bees for pollination services. Varroa mites, extreme weather events, pests and diseases gave beekeepers and bees a hard time. Under these conditions, evaluating the health of bee colonies to predict pollination readiness and prevent colony losses is even more complex and labour intensive.  Beehive sensors have come onto the market promising to improve some of the workload in evaluation honey bee health. They may provide different types of data on bee colonies, such as the weight of the hives or the internal temperature near the brood nest. In our project “Best practices for evaluation of bee health technology” run by Prof. Andrew Barron, Dr [...]

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