I did, and there were a few things which I felt were far superior with the Arnia.
The Arnia temp probe is on a lead, and you don’t put it in the top of the hive, you put it in the center of the brood nest. That means you get a brood temperature, which is far more helpful than a “top of the hive” temperature.
My husband wanted the acoustic monitors (I didn’t really care), and Broodminder doesn’t have those.
The Arnia web interface is really nice, and very intuitive. I preferred it to the Broodminder option.
The Broodminder only gives you the weight of half of the hive (it goes under one end), the Arnia gives you whole hive weights (it extends the full length). I feel this is slightly more accurate.
Broodminder uses coin batteries and you have to dismantle everything to replace them. Arnia uses D-cells and they are outside the hive, so can be replaced without lifting or dismantling the hive.
Arnia has a theft alert system (which would also work for bear destruction or hive blowing over) which tells you immediately if the hive weight drops dramatically.
The default Broodminder kit is Bluetooth-only, by the time you add the Cellular data option, it costs almost as much as the Arnia system.
So, we went with Arnia, and I am happy with that choice. I think @Arvada has a couple of the Arnia monitors too, so maybe he will chime in with some thoughts.
I haven’t had experience with Broodminder but with Arnia I can at least comment. I have two which intercommunicate then push data to the web. I like the D batteries, I haven’t even changed my first set yet and I record data four times a day and have been using them for over three months.
Weight is fantastic, although temperature probe is on a line so you can move it, the bees move so in the winter here in Nebraska it isn’t as useful. That being said I rely in the winter on the acoustic monitor for activity more. Interesting note and I’d like a few musicians to weigh in but if you look at the spectrum graph, the bee “noise” is harmonic (D,A,D) roughly. I play guitar so I was intrigued on the musical notes that I was seeing on my spectrum graph. I was surprised that “roughly” there were three peaks which oddly were harmonic. Almost a bee song (or minimally a bee chord).
I did get the weather station attachment which I would be happy to tell you about IF if ever rains here. We have had a horrible dry spell and we have had no moisture in 3 months now. Unseasonably warm, the bees are pillaging their stores faster than I want.
BUT, that being said, yes they are alive and well, and inside their wrapped homes with internal monitors telling me they are still here. As a scientist, I do enjoy the data. I find an interesting association with humidity spikes and their internal bee activity. (Also helpful when there is no brood to keep them in one spot).
The web interface as a few glitches which I have reported to Arnia, nothing major. As a whole very happy with the purchase.
It is extremely helpful for a couple of things for me.
I was able to see when the nectar flow ended. This enabled me to get the Flow super off a little earlier than I probably would otherwise have done. I was then able to my mite treatment a little earlier too.
I was able to put the Flow super on a little earlier than I would have done from inspection alone, as I could see the rate of weight gain and could calculate when they might get short of space. It helped with the decision to put a medium on top of the Flow super too, promoting capping of the Flow frames. Last year we had a good nectar flow in San Diego. Next year is likely to be a lot drier. I anticipate the Arnia will be very helpful in assessing whether to super at all.
Combined with inspections, the weight drop lets me gauge far more accurately when to feed and how much. I think that will reduce the risk of overfeeding and getting sugar syrup into my harvest.
When I haven’t spotted the queen, the maintaining of brood at 34C is a nice reassurance that she isn’t lost or dead.
Only over winter. The reason is that in winter my main reasons for inspecting are to assess food stores and do a very basic colony health evaluation. During the spring, summer and nectar flow seasons, I still try to inspect weekly for swarm prevention in addition to health, space etc. I don’t trust any Arnia data to do that for me.
Here is how it is very helpful for me. Because day time temperatures do not rise about 30 degrees often, inspections are not an option.
The weight scale tells me when I need to quickly lift a lid and throw sugar in on top. I have a candy board but I make smaller discs or rectangles of pressed sugar. That way I can quickly lift a lid and slip them in without disturbing the hive trying to maintain body heat.
So for our locale, there is a big benefit in the winter. I agree with Dawn, spring and summer are valuable too but the data you pay attention to is a little different. I don’t think it has changed how often I tend to the hives but provides me with a warning that I need to.
Sophie the Maremma checking the beehives. I wonder if dogs could be trained to identify the hives that contain live bees in this bitter cold. This has been the longest cold snap I can remember here on the northeast coast of the US. Colder weather is approaching.
The problem would be when there are live bees and dead bees…Dogs could definitely trained for one or the other but would get confused if both were present.
My birthday present to myself shortly will be an infra red camera something like a FLIR ONE Pro. @Gerald_Nickel showed us what they can do.
I agree with buss
Get yourself a FLIR attachment for your smartphone. Those wooden hives leak so much heat through the walls you can see if your bees are alive
These Australian Golden Orb Weaver Spiders are picking up the odd bee out of my hives. I think that the big one is a female & the small one is the male. Note, he is keeping his distance
PS. While moving the web to try to get the spider to change position, I was impressed at how strong the main support web is. I was hoping that the camera picked up the golden color of the web. I’m pleased that we achieved that.
(aka mouse guards, in case you didn’t get it 
)
