Now that the BeeDuino is up and running I’ve had an opportunity to grab some of the data to see what kind of stories we can tell. Here are temperature logs for a couple days:

If you look at the steady temps on the “B” frame is is pretty clear that our newly-installed package is clustering off-center in the hive – the “B” frame is the 3rd frame from the right-side of the hive. The temperatures for that frame stay consistently at ~95F day/night.

The other interesting story is how the other frames stay consistently warmer than the outside temperature (yellow line) – the “A” frame is in the center of the hive, so closer to the “B” frame, and so warmer than the “C” frame that is located farthest away from the cluster.

I’ve also pulled in some weight data. The scale is at this point undetermined – I haven’t correlated the readings in mV to actual weight, however it is still interesting from a relative measurement standpoint

Basically every day the hive weight goes up. This makes a little sense when you think about a couple factors:

There is a 2-gallon sugarwater feeder in the top of the hive. The bees are still consistently feeding on both the feeder, and during the day there is lots of foraging going on. If you look back at the temperature/humidity plot, there is a significantly higher humidity in the hive than outside.

So, looking at these factors, we can expect a continuous DECREASE in hive weight if the bees are continuously feeding off sugarwater – the net weight decreases as the bees evaporate water into humidity/the atmosphere. OK, so that makes sense and probably explains why the hive loses weight throughout the evening/night hours.

So what is goin on from ~8AM until sundown? Every day the weight goes back up! I would guess this means that the large number of bees leaving the hive and foraging are bringing nectar/pollen back to the hive, resulting in a daytime increase of mass.

Once the bees are sufficiently established and stop feeding off the sugarwater I’m hoping to see some daily ripple, with an overall increasing trend.

Yay data!!!