Honey Bee Swarm Alarm

The aim of this project to produce a fully automated electronic alarm that informs
beekeepers that a hive of bees has began making preparations to swarm. The project
should result in a function prototype.
Without a swarm alarm, bee keepers need to perform regular and intensive hive
inspections. Not only do these inspections require a lot of time, they are not always
performed as regularly and/or intensively as they need to be, as a consequence they
are not always effective. Swarming bees are not only a nuisance to the public, due to
the cost of replacement bees and the resulting loss of honey crop, swarms are also
expensive for the beekeeper. In addition, due to a pest called Varoa, a lost swarm of
bees will struggle to survive in the wild and can no longer contribute to the country's
pollinating force.
Not only will this device help existing beekeepers minimise swarming, it should also
encourage people to take it up as it drastically simplifies the beekeeping process.
Furthermore, once the device is widespread there is the potential to provide scientists
researching the drastic decline of the honey bee with large amounts of valuable data.
There are currently an estimated 275 thousand bee hives in the UK alone and the cost
of replacement bees lost in a swarm is £50. There are 2.4 million bee hives in the
USA and a further 9 million in Europe alone.
No swarm alarm currently exists; this product would be completely unique and would
have no competitors in the market. Identification and successful interpretation of
swarm indicators possible to measure by electronic means represents a significant
technological advance in itself. This project would be a very good example of British
innovation.
The total cost of the project is approximately £140,000, the majority of this will be
internal as the project team members are expert and will be devoted to this project full
time. Due to time constraints, the majority of external consultancy work will be
sought from a local University. The approximate time scale for this project is 18
months.
The important milestones are: identifying the physical swarm indicators, developing
hardware (a circuit board) to measure these indicators, developing firmware (a
computer program) to intemperate these indicators, producing a working prototype
and testing the prototype.
The project will be based in the north east of England. All staff will be employed in
the north east of England. External consultants will be employed from the north east
of England. All equipment will be sourced from the north east of England. Although
experimental work will be conducted in the north east of England, the majority of will
be conducted in Italy as the climate and native breed of honey bee better reflects the
mass market at which this device is aimed.