Category Archives: research

PREPARING THE BEEHIVES AT FABLAB BARCELONA

In a few days the OpenSource Beehives workshop will be hold in Valldaura. Meanwhile, Jonathan Minchin, John Rees and Ferran Masip, three students of the FabLab Academy, have been working for weeks on the actual physical beehives and the sensors that will be inside them. It’s been a process of research to find and create the best prototype, modeling, printing and milling the parts for the final assembly; while circuits where printed, soldered, and lots of programming and testing was happening. There will be – at least – three final beehives, one to be placed in Valldaura, one to be placed on the rooftop of Iaac, and another to be shipped to Belgium, at OKNO. Continue reading →

robot bee

BEES and HAPTIC ROBOTICS

After visiting the Koç University in Istanbul last february, I started thinking about links between haptic robotics research, neuroscience and the antenna’s of insects. Receptors, senders and receivers, input and output (but what is happening inbetween?). Stings, pheromones, poison, skin, reactions, multifaceted panoramic vision eyes, antennae with 3000 receptors, electrically charged fur for pollination purposes: examples of high tech nature and high technology. Besides its senses, let’s analyze the circadian rythm of the western honeybee to understand the functioning of the super organism in the best possible way.
Compound eyes with 6.900 small lenses, each representing a pixel in an image. Antennae, responsible for the smell function (in stereo!), 100 times more sensible compared to humans. A tongue that can unfold and extend till half of the body length. Wings beating at 230 times a minute, and folding back to adapt to small holes (in flowers). Mandibles for carrying, pincing, collecting and biting. Feet with hooks and pads. Legs with pollen baskets. And not yet spoken about the superorganisms communication methods. With pheromones (smell), vibrations and the famous waggle dance, the bodylanguage of the bees.
A profound study of the honeybees’ senses is needed if we want to come up with an innovative design that can compete with the sophisticated functioning of the organism.

SENSOR RESEARCH

The Warré-model is by definition a hive-model for sustainable beekeeping, as the bee colony can develop at its own pace instead of being controlled by the beekeeper (nadiring the boxes, no queen excluders, ‘optimal’ temperature regulation). The Warré model is not the ‘best commercial model’ concerning the amount of honey production, but it is sustainable as it does not stress the bees with ‘overproduction’ (honey taken away by the beekeeper). The hives in the network are by preference on different locations, so that they can give us information on the bee colonies at these different locations (city, rural, …) and eco-information on the environment they are set in. Goal is to compare the collected data sets of these locations, as well as the wellbeing and behaviour of the bee colonies.
For now, we have basic sensors (t° in/out, humidity) in a hive Barcelona, and in several hives in Brussels, on different locations:
⇒ we can send the sensor data of these 3 hives to the http://opensensordata.net/ database that Peter has set up
⇒ on the t° data values we should do a computational correction, as the t° sensors are located only on 1 spot in the hive, and the values they give are thus very influenced by the outside t° values.

To have a better read-out of the t° in the hives, we are developing the 3D t° sensing system with the thermistors. If this works out, it should provide us with the correct t° values in the hive (box), as well as with the behaviour (movement) of the bees inside of this monitored box.
The new 3D system should give a detailed read out, but it is also very complex and time consuming to install. Every box has 8 frames x 8 thermistors, this makes 64 thermistors per hive-box to be soldered/attached to the frames, + connected to the PCB board. Every box has its own PCB board. Knowing that 1 (Warré) hive has an average setup of 4 boxes, we can calculate that it will be a huge amount of work to monitor the t° in 3D in the hive with this system.

We are finalising the first ‘bee-box and’ (3D temperature sensing) and we’ll install it in the Brussels (so-on) Warré hive and connect it to the internet to have a daily monitoring, as well on line (data values and 3D visualisation) as physically (control the hive regularly). Once we know that the 3D thermistor t° system is working as we expected, we can extend it to the other hives. Therefore we should make a subcontracting working plan, as there is a lot of physical work connected to it and most of us don’t have the time to do it. We should monitor the bees like this for a season, at least through winter till next spring’s development, and work with the data and see how correct they are. While monitoring the system like this for a while, with the findings and results, we should work on a simplification of the monitoring model so that we can adapt the monitoring to later (organic) models of intelligent beehives.

OLD SEEDS FOR NEW CULTURES

Seed saving is plants moving through time and space. I am drying following herbs and flowers as basic ingredients for herbalist preparations: macerates, creams, tinctures, oils, sirops, …
Rosmarinus officinalis – rosemary; Thymus vulgaris – thyme; Eucalyptus gunnii – eucalyptus; Agastache foeniculum – agastache; Salvia officinalis – sage; Origanum vulgare – oregano; Mentha piperita – peppermint; Hyssopus officinalis – hysop; Satureja montana – savory; Matricaria chamomilla – chamomile; Viola tricolor – heartsease; Continue reading →

SEASON 2012 – HARVEST MOMENTS

Short chain distribution from the rooftop Farm’s harvest, mainly to neighbors and friends: Otber, Toestand project Vilvoorde, Romuald + family, Lucia en Johannes, Radha, Alexandra, Luc, Jan & Christel, harvest dinner Cubans, harvest dinner Axel&Marie, Luc, Jan&Christel, Clémentine, Joeri, Zahra, Jonas Gruzka, Billy, Franziska & Sam, Nathalie Hunter, Daniele Sambo, Radek, Macek, Burning Ice, Eggevoort Water Project (citymined), Nicolas, Katia from den Hague, Els, Billy and Fabrice, Louis Schreel BBQ 10 people, Joannes Vandermeulen, mama, Miet, Els Lingier, Betty Schiel, Luc Steels, … Continue reading →

PRESERVATION or HOW TO SPEND YOUR FREE TIME

Or how to spend your free time in summer. The pantry is loaden with the abundance of summer harvest. We are cooking, steaming, drying, freezing, potting and processing roots, fruits and vegetables in all different ways. We dry leaves for tea (fennel/leaves, vanille, liquorice, fennelseeds, bitter orange peel) and for making medicinal recipes.
further reading: how to preserve tomatoes? Preservation of vegetables in oil and vinegar: It is now a relatively common practice to bottle vegetables and herbs and spices in either oil, vinegar or a mixture of both. Continue reading →

WATER MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

We collect the rainwater from the surrounding rooftops to foresee in the water supply of the rooftopgarden. As the rooftopgarden has a limited amount of soil, and because the elements (wind and sun) are stronger high on the rooftops, the soil needs more water than in a ‘natural’ situation. The watermanagement becomes thus very important. It takes up to two hours to water the complete garden manually, with the hose. To save time, we decide to install an automatic wateringsystem, consisting of a microdrip system that is connected to the watertanks and that is controlled by humidity sensors. Continue reading →

AIR POLLUTION MONITORING

The purpose is to gather data on the effects of urban air pollution on urban gardening- and farming crops. Soil can be analyzed and heavy metals in soils can be treated by bioremediation (mushrooms, green manure, nitrogen fixers), but on the effects of city air pollution on crops there is not a lot of information available. How do car exhaust, road dust and acid rain affect the different crops? Is the environmental pollution affect different for leaves, flowers, roots or fruits? Are nuts, fruits and berries less exposed to the urban pollution risks than leaf crops as spinach, or as root crops which do take up and accumulate metals from dust particle deposits in the soil? How might we intelligently assess risk and proceed with a program of harm reduction, and modify urban garden design strategies around these known risks? Continue reading →

COMPANION PLANTING & THE GREENHOUSE ON THE ROOFTOP

Companion planting is the planting of different crops in proximity (in gardening and agriculture), on the theory that they assist each other in nutrient uptake, pest control, pollination, and other factors necessary to increasing crop productivity. Companion planting is a form of polyculture.
Companion planting is used by farmers and gardeners for many reasons. For farmers using an integrated pest management system, increased yield and/or reduction of pesticides is the goal.For gardeners, the combinations of plants also make for a more varied, attractive vegetable garden, as well as allowing more productive use of space. Continue reading →

HUMIDITY & TEMPERATURE MEASUREMENTS

During the second workshop week we installed 2 temperature sensors and a humidity sensor in the middle topbars of the brood chamber. There is also a combined temperature/humidity sensor hanging at the backside of the hive. The design of the bee monitoring system is able to log temperature and humidity inside the hive brood nest and measure temperature and humidity in the rooftop garden outside the hive.
All the sensors are connected to an arduino board, which is connected to the internet.
With this set up I can follow at any time the warming up and cooling down in the hive. Temperature and humidity inside and outside the hive are important indicators of hive health.
Some worker bees have a role as ‘heater bees’. They can dislocate their wings from their flight muscles and shiver with those large flight muscles to generate heat. These heater bees are easily identified in images taken by heat sensitive cameras because the temperature of their thorax can reach over 42°C degrees, contrasting with the normal temperature of the brood nest of 35 degrees Celsius. Even when the temperature outside is below freezing, the center of the hive can be 33 degrees.

dead-bees
pix: dead black bees on frames

If the outside temperature falls below 12°C, bees cannot fly and they will be confined to the hive. If the bees either run out of honey or it is so cold that they cannot crawl from the edge of their warm cluster to the honey (below 10 degrees C, they cannot move), they will starve or freeze.
This happened with our first beehive in 2009: a colony of native black bees (with pedigree) did not survive the harsh winter because their food sources were too far away from the bee nucleus. Too far was only 3 frames – but in a very cold winter every centimeter counts.


bees ‘fanning’ at the entrance of the hive, to cool down the temperature

Cooling in the hot summer is just as important. Wax softens if the hive temperature exceeds 35°C. Besides structural problems, this negatively impacts vibration-based communication between bees inside the dark hive. To cool down the hive the water-bees collect water and spread it over the comb. Bees also evaporate heat by mechanically creating air currents inside the hive to cool it down. Fanning bees at the entrance of the hive are performing this task.

Research suggests that temperature of the hive increases immediately before a swarm occurs and drops below ambient temperature at the time of the swarm itself. [paper …]
Humidity inside and outside the hive can influence how quickly the water in nectar is evaporated and transformed into honey. The bees try to maintain an average humidity value of 60% inside. The degree of humidity may also indicate environments that favor fungal growths that can devastate hives. This happens mostly in humid winters – (see chalkbrood).

humid
pix: humidity graph

Graph representing the humidity values in the green monitored beehive over the season 2011-2012.
In the beginning of the graph there is some noise, but from october 2011 we see clearly that the bees maintian a rather constant value of humidity around 55%, there where the outside values are [onderhevig aan] much bigger changes.

temp
pix: temperature graph

Graph representing the temperature values in the green monitored beehive over the season 2011-2012.
There are 2 temperature sensors installed left and right in the same topbar. The highest sensor values are closest to the honeycomb building and to the bee nucleus in winter.