In April, May and August 2013 Annemie Maes organized a three-part bee monitoring workshop at Valldaura Self Sufficient Lab in Barcelona. Prior to the event she developed together with Jon Mitchin and John Rees (at the Fab Lab Barcelona) several beehives, making use of Warré’s and OpenStructures principles to make them more sustainable.
They had equally been developing a sensor-equipped measuring device that tracks the temperature and humidity changes on the inside and outside of the hive and as such reveals how ecological factors affect the bees’ behavior.
The Valldaura interns had been using material found in the surroundings to create a natural structure that will offer coolness and shadow to the Valldaura beehive on hot summer days. During the first part of the workshop, the hive was assembled and placed in the area that had been prepared for it. The second series of working sessions was used to transfer a recently formed colony of European dark bees from the Catalan inland region to their brand-new home on the Valldaura premises. The pieces of technology were connected and set to work using solar panels, ready for studying the bees as bio markers disclosing environmental health.
Monitoring the beehives at Valldaura is an ongoing collaboration between Annemie Maes (okno) and the Fab Lab Barcelona. They also are regularly updating and improving the beehive models. The hives are described in a handy DIY instructable and all the information is put online at opensourcebeehives.net. Regularly they are presenting the beehives and the research finding at conferences and maker fairs, all the code is updated and available at github.