You could double stack a pair of Flow Hives but why would you want to is the question I have to ask? It would take a lot of time and effort to do a brood box inspection of the bottom hive. I’m not sure having the top hive as close as 300mm above the bottom hive will give you a comfortable space to work in.
I don’t have an answer to your second question about spiders in your bee hive. My only pests I have with my hives is ants and SHB which I have already covered on the forum.
Hi @Gaz, just wondering on an update on the hive monitor from Slovak and how it is performing? Cheers Brent
1 Like
Hi Brent it is just ok.
The app takes at least 6 attempts to find the devices.
The weight is accurate and the temperature humidity is good but the noise is not scaled well enough to be of much use.
My internal unit battery is low so no internal data now til I replaced it.
The external battery is still good.
I find the weight trend very informative and good to watch prior to splits. The bee qty is not accurate at all.
I still like it for the price but the company offers no support when contacted.
thanks
Gary Weir
3 Likes
I have one of these and I think caution is warranted depending on your climate.
The problem is that the weight sensor is affected by high humidity. As long as the weather stays dry the scales work correctly, But if there is a night of rain or worse several days of rain the readings simply go haywire, often dropping into negative territory. The readings do recover but can take days or even weeks, depending on the ambient humidity.
I think this is a small start up, producing many products, but I think they have moved too fast and not tested their products adequately.
And yes, I have the same problems with making connections to the phone and also the batteries do not last as long as claimed.
1 Like
Hi Jim I work with electronics and the first thing I did when the unit arrived was completely sealed the electronics and any holes to to load cells on each corner. I haven’t had any weather related issues.
It would have failed or played up pretty quickly as ants and moisture got in.
thanks
Gary Weir
4 Likes
Hi Gary
I think that sums it up pretty good because you realised the issues immediately when the comany didnt. How did you seal it up? They told me that it wasnt possible to seal this version but that they were bringing out a new sealed metal version.
1 Like
I just used no more gaps filler but silicone would also be ok just remove all covers and fill around the cables where the come in next to the electronics and under the cover over the electronics. fil.any small holes where the cables go through the wood also.
thanks
Gary Weir
3 Likes
Looks very interesting thanks for the info.
Gary Weir
Hello!
Great topic and better opinions!
My brother is a beginner beekeeper in Spain. He lost 2 out of 10 hives because stupid beginner errors. During the next hive inspection 2 weeks after the errors he made, the consequences were fatal. By having used remote monitoring technology this wouldn’t have happened at all.
I started a bit of research online after getting adds on Facebook about an Italian startup (ebee) with a similar product than beehivemonitoring.com. It seem that someone listened our conversations about beekeeping…
I live in Berlin, and I want to buy this for my brother, who lives in Madrid, and additionally I will be able to help him at the beekeeping in Spain by remotely monitoring the hives from Germany. Magic!
Anything I’ve found after discovering beehivemonitoring.com seems to don’t be better than this Slovakian company.
There is the British brand, that someone mentioned before on this discussion, which seems to have a nicer, almost videogame appearance, app interface than Slovakian interface, but is much more expensive (purchase and subscription), and the Slovakian traffic light alert system seems to be useful and easy fast check for me, and if you don’t use the pc software but only the phone app, it’s free of charge.
The Italian has weaker and starker approaches than beehivemonitoring. Weaker is the lack of gateway up to 100 hives, which makes to be needed a Sim card for each device and therefore each hive, uprising this way the operational costs and uprising too the purchase of the Italian system. Bad scalability. The Italian devices are very expensive (more than double price ) and because bad scalability, you have to buy always the full package, scales, sensors, GMS. It makes no sense to me. Maybe for experimental location studies might make sense, but it is not my case.
On the other hand, the italian strength relays on the elimination of tinny batteries for sensors and scales, as they are all getting the energy from the same solar panel. The Slovakian company instead, ensures the tinny batteries last for up to 5 years. Someone said it is not true before in this forum? Can anyone confirm real battery duration please?
So in general, I think it is better the approach of the Slovakian, although another good point for Italian startup is that they are developing remote video vigilance integrated straight in the software, and as well an online subscription product for beekeepers to adopt a HivE (adopt program) to directly sell your own honig much easier. It is Like to pay a fee to enter a market to sell your products on it. Interesting approach.
Anyway, although the Italian is quite good, very good actually, Slovakian seems to me to be even better. Let me explain. I’ve watched a playlist of videos from an old german beekeeper (up to 15) YouTube videos, testing the product and enjoying the data collected by sensors and explaining many things that he can deduct out of the data, and how to use it. I am pretty sure it is a good product. Not perfect yet, but easy to upgrade soon.
This German guy made few mistakes and contacted the company client support. He was a bit rude by presenting himself with a 1.5 hour video explaining his complains in German. The company refused to argue with him after they explain him 2 big errors that he made. He acknowledged his mistakes too. Nice guy, bad day.
On his last video he is throwing away the Slovakian devices into the garbage, very angry, and more upset, not because the product was bad, just because he had an unfortunate situation with the company’s client support.
but it seems to me that he regrets himself while disposing it. He explained during many videos how good the products were. You have to watch his very own face when he throws it away, to be able to understand what I mean. Pure Poetry and Drama. Meme face.
He had also problems with weather. The wooden scale stop working for a while (he didn’t sealed it, nice trick! Thanks!) and the old gateway plastic box was not very watertight. The company has a new model now.
These videos are 8 months old already.
Today I’ve checked China products in Chinese with a native chineese friend of mine and there are starting to develop a system. They have 4.KM euros founds on a research and product development project, and a l i b a ba it’s part of it.
I ended up in this forum by chance, just because I made a bit of more research before to press the buy button. Trying to find any independent comments. Please help!
I am about to order the following products to beehivemonitoring, any comment would be awesome:
1x starter kit 4g solar(1x gateway + 1x wooden scale 0.5kg precision + 1x heart sensors) 370€
10x heart sensors ( buying 10 units is the cheapest) 590€
3x metal scale XS precision 10 grams. (buying 3 units is the cheapest. 100€ More expensive than wooden scales) 650€
1x GPS tracker 20 euros
2x SIM cards 20 euros.
Total 2400€
They make you an additional 15% cost reduction when the bill is above 1000€, so I will pay around 1200€.
I find that scales will not be needed for every hive, only few to statistically compare hives or to monitor problematic hives too, but the hearts (sensors) will be needed on each hive. They are the key of bee monitoring. Swarm detection, roof opening, and much more. Scale helps in case of theft, honey production, and few things more, but I feel they are not needed everywhere, specially when they cost more than the hive and the swarm all together.
Therefore I am buying 3 high precision 10g scales which are more expensive than wooden scales too, but they let me make a more accurate bee counting, which will let me react sooner to any unforseen event. Beginners proof!
This technology seems to allow to compare and to choose the best swarm of all of your hives, to get by this way the best lineages to keep and those which are better to don’t keep at all. All data is exportable to excel if you want adjust or add new control parameters or boundaries to set alarms.
Please, any comment is helpful. Really. Bee season starts soon in Madrid and I would like to buy this kind product as soon as possible. This week actually.
Thank you very much in advance and sorry for the long post!!