# General beekeeping > Bee health >  Varroa estimations during winter.

## Greengage

I placed some sticky screens under the brood box's and left them in for 3 days, i have now removed them, one hive had 4 mites and the other had 9 mites, Both hives were treated with Apiguard in September, Today its 12 degres and bees are flying and bringing in Pollen from Ivy. 
Is there a formula for working out the infestation levels during winter as i cannot do sugar roll with 300 bees this time of year.

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## fatshark

http://www.nationalbeeunit.com/publi...appresults.cfm

Average Daily Mite Fall = 3.0 varroa mites
The number of days over which you collected/counted mites is less than seven. This might give a poor estimate of mite numbers, so the predictions must be treated with caution.Estimated number of adult varroa mites in the colony = 1200
Treatment is recommended as soon as practically possible.

Mite drop is very hit and miss ...

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## Jon

Just treat with Oxalic late December and whether you have 50 mites or 500 mites it will kill most of them.

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## Greengage

Tks lads Ill go with the treatment just before christmas and fingers crossed I will not kill the queen. 5mls per frame of brood so four frames =20ml in total using a large syringe because I only have 3 hives.

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## Jon

> Tks lads Ill go with the treatment just before christmas and fingers crossed I will not kill the queen.


I have treated numerous colonies with Oxalic over the past few years and to the best of my knowledge I have never killed a queen with this treatment.
I have one queen going into her 5th season and several going into their 4th who have had Oxalic every December. Very little downside with Oxalic treatment.

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## Greengage

I have read somewhere that there are two problems using the dribble method, One I have to open the hive which will effect temperatures inside and secondly bees can ingest some of the syrup leading to supressed brood rearing and toxicity but this can be overcome using a vapouriser which I dont have. If iam quick with the treatment this should not effect temp and if the temp drops below 5 degrees I should have no brood but at the moment in Dublin the temps are 10 to 12degrees and the bees are still flying and bringing in ivy pollen, thats not supposed to be happening this time of year anyway having said that i will go with your advice and buy Apibioxal for treatment when temp drops.

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## prakel

> I have read somewhere that there are two problems using the dribble method, One I have to open the hive which will effect temperatures inside


I'd best be careful how I answer this... I'm not suggesting that anyone should copy what I've done.

Over the last few years I've randomly chosen a few colonies to be *inspected* through the winter each year. The inspection might be a superficial 'look' on a regular basis or it might be a check to see the brood status. Yes I know that I'm in the sunny south but it does still get cold enough here.

I've yet to observe that any of the colonies so treated build up at a different pace or produce less honey on average by the close of the season.

Why did I start doing this? I got tired of being told, that opening a hive in the middle of winter would kill or seriously damage the colony, by people who always, to a man, insisted that they'd never done it themselves for the simple reason that it's 'wrong'. Well I agree, it's not good beekeeping on various levels but it did show me amongst other things when the most likely time for a mid winter brood break is for my bees in this locality. Funnily enough, there's a local guy currently soliciting the same information from people (anywhere) with overwintering observation hives in an effort to find out when his bees will have a brood break. The primary dates which he's posted on his informal questionnaire during which he's plainly expecting to see brood breaks simply don't relate to the average time period which I've observed here. But he doesn't talk to me so I'll leave him to get on with it! 

I'll finish by stating once more that I'm not suggesting anyone should copy me.

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## Adam

Brooding will depend on the temperature outside the hive as well as the day length. (We know that brooding slows down after the longest day so the opposite effect would apply in winter after the shortest day I suppose. Ideally you would want to treat with Oxalic Acid when there's minimal sealed brood. I've not pulled out brood frames over the winter but my best guess is that the mild winter for me last year resulted in a relatively ineffective mite kill when the hive was 'cleansed' with Oxalic Acid. I tend to do it between Christmas and New Year. Never seen any queen issues at all after treatment. Opening on a cold day for a few moments doesn't seem to be a problem. I believe that trickling a liquid is safer for the beekeeper than scooping a small quantity into a vaporiser and then producing a dangerous gas. My guess is that it's also quicker and you can have a quick peek at stores as well whilst the crown-board is off. We now have an approved product - Api-Boixal - which doesn't seem much different apart from cost (and it's a stronger mix) to self-mix Oxalic Acid.

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## Jon

> I got tired of being told, that opening a hive in the middle of winter would kill or seriously damage the colony,


I am with you 100% Prakel. Opening a hive for 5 minutes makes no difference.
We have Arnia monitoring equipment at the association apiary and during the summer a hive which has been opened for half an hour for beginners to inspect, has the brood nest is back at 34.5c within a few minutes of being closed.
In winter I have come across hives blown over or with the lid blown off which have been exposed to the elements for a couple of days and the bees are usually still alive, albeit a little bedraggled. Bees are far more resilient than most people imagine.

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## busybeephilip

> We have Arnia monitoring equipment at the association apiary .


Wondering - does the equipment show that brood rearing is taking place and the weights of the hives falling as stores are being used.  This would indicate that bees might be short of food come the spring !

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## Jon

There is only one hive on a scale. I put new batteries in it last week so it should give weight readings for the next 3 months.
I still need to set up the other temperature monitors with new batteries.

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## Greengage

I would be curious about this Jon, Where did you get the equipmnet scales /temp monoitors amd would you be interested in posting your results.

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## fatshark

http://www.arnia.co.uk perhaps?

If so, I have a follow-up question Jon ... is the stated battery life of the base station and individual monitors realistic? Do yours need replacing because they ran out faster than expected or because life/queen rearing/Eastenders/chatting with mates etc. got in the way and you forgot?

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## Jon

The equipment costs a fortune. It came to the association via a grant. I'll post up anything of interest.
Arnia is the supplier.

Edit
The gateway unit lasts about 6 months but the internal hive monitors only seem to last 2-3 months between battery changes. This aspect of the system is a pita.
The build quality of the monitors is poor as well and I have had to get several replaced. They are not properly sealed for a humid environment.

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## Greengage

That site looks interesting, Ill read it later dont see any mention of costs there. Look forward to the info you post.

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## Jon

a £10,000 grant bought 8 transmitter units, 32 monitors, 8 scales and 8 rainfall measuring units.

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## Greengage

OOOK think ill pass. crikey expensive

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## The Drone Ranger

> OOOK think ill pass. crikey expensive


Hi Greengage 
What hive info did you have in mind for measuring
Most stuff can be done with a bit of DIY hacking I would think
An A8 could tell you if your hive blew over for instance
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GPS-Tracke...3D171287942682
Don't know if that link will work

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## Greengage

> Hi Greengage 
> What hive info did you have in mind for measuring
> Most stuff can be done with a bit of DIY hacking I would think
> An A8 could tell you if your hive blew over for instance
> http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GPS-Tracke...3D171287942682
> Don't know if that link will work


 All the info the above gadget could give Jon, I like gadgets and Spreadsheets. Sitting here and being able to monitor what is happening at the Apiary.it is not essential but it would be nice to look at.

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## The Drone Ranger

There are loads of projects that might fit the bill
http://www.instructables.com/id/Rasp...ical-Assembly/

When that £5.00 Pi is released it might be worth a go 
Google will have lots

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## Greengage

Great another project for me. tks

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## The Drone Ranger

According to Norman Carrick there isn't enough money around in bee research at the moment
I am too lazy to do much about it but there are probably a lot of projects that could benefit from crowd funding
One might be to ask all UK beekeepers for a single drone from each of their hives
That could provide a map of queen genetic markers or other interesting population data
Perhaps researchers could map changes in the bee populations over a longer period

Just like "Field of Dreams" If you build it they will come
It's funny how a big pile of biological material waiting to be analysed attracts scientists and researchers

Pie in the Sky possibly ? 
Here's an interesting one in space never mind the Sky
http://www.thecrowdfundnetwork.com/n...ellite-rescue/
 :Smile:

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## The Drone Ranger

Hi Greengage
Check this one It might be modified to suit your monitoring
Arduino clones are about £1.50 each eBay China
The solar panel a couple of pounds more than that
http://www.instructables.com/id/SOLA...ATHER-STATION/

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## fatshark

> When that £5.00 Pi is released it might be worth a go


Everywhere has already sold out ... and it's *only £4*. Extraordinary. 1GHz 512Mb RAM ... my first 80386 PC was less powerful than that and it cost hundreds. It was also about 3 cubic feet. However, that was in 1948.

For those interested in hive monitoring it should be possible to hook it up to a Sleepy Pi Arduino controller to put the Pi to sleep in between monitoring and so allow it to be run off a battery for very long periods. This could be an interesting winter project ... and a lot cheaper than the Arnia £££ quoted by Jon.

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## The Drone Ranger

> Everywhere has already sold out ... and it's *only £4*. Extraordinary. 1GHz 512Mb RAM ... my first 80386 PC was less powerful than that and it cost hundreds. It was also about 3 cubic feet. However, that was in 1948.
> 
> For those interested in hive monitoring it should be possible to hook it up to a Sleepy Pi Arduino controller to put the Pi to sleep in between monitoring and so allow it to be run off a battery for very long periods. This could be an interesting winter project ... and a lot cheaper than the Arnia £££ quoted by Jon.


Hi fatshark 
Just posted a project link along those lines for arduino  :Smile: 
Coincidence

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## fatshark

Fools seldom differ  :Wink: 

PS What little I know about Arduino suggests it would probably be the way to go ... I'm just a lot more comfortable with Linux/Python _etc._ I also have power in one of my apiaries  :Smile:

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## The Drone Ranger

> Fools seldom differ 
> 
> PS What little I know about Arduino suggests it would probably be the way to go ... I'm just a lot more comfortable with Linux/Python _etc._ I also have power in one of my apiaries


On Ebay 50,000mAh power bank is a about £11 which would run the project above for a long time 
The advantage of those is the output is 5V already

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## Jimbo

If I remember correctly Arnia did a pilot project with Scottish beekeepers a number of years ago who were given their monitors for free
There was a guy from Arnia who did a presentation at an SBA meeting 
From my recollection it was hive sounds that were the most interesting results as it could be used to predict when the hive was about to swarm
Have heard nothing since. Perhaps some SBA member who got the equipment might know more


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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## busybeephilip

was talking to the aria chap at greenmount conference and yes there is a sound measuring device for swarming based on the woods apidictor, as was said earlier, the stuff is wild expensive and for the hobby beek it would take many years to recover the cost - if ever !

Best if some clever chap could programme a PIC18 for hive weight and theft control as i think this is really all one needs

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## Wmfd

> If I remember correctly Arnia did a pilot project with Scottish beekeepers a number of years ago who were given their monitors for free
> There was a guy from Arnia who did a presentation at an SBA meeting 
> From my recollection it was hive sounds that were the most interesting results as it could be used to predict when the hive was about to swarm
> Have heard nothing since. Perhaps some SBA member who got the equipment might know more
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


They seem to be making progress (in conjunction with the bee farmers etc)

http://www.swarmonitor.com/

David

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## fatshark

Profits must be low if they can't get a website hosting company that doesn't have a popup on every page carrying adverts!
And related ... I emailed Arnia for some specifics recently and didn't get a reply. Perhaps their batteries have run out?

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## gavin

> They seem to be making progress (in conjunction with the bee farmers etc)
> 
> http://www.swarmonitor.com/
> 
> David


Three steps forward, three steps back ....


*Experiments for acquisition of the diagnostic information found in vibrational signal.*   	    The 20 hives set up at INRA are also being continuously  monitored for health conditions including Varroa destructor infestation  (using the icing sugar method), the presence of chalkbrood (Ascosphaera  apis) and Nosema ceranae.
               In addition regular estimates of the number of bees and  amount of brood are being made. Vibration data has been collected for  more than 100 days in the form of averaged spectra from the  accelerometers.
               Principal component analysis (PCA) has been applied to  these data and a high level of similarity has been obtained from hive to  hive for the healthy colonies.
   	    All but one of the colonies at INRA were lost over the winter of  2013/2014, however, this has provided valuable data showing how the  vibrational signals change as a colony is lost.
   	    All colonies that had been lost over the winter were repopulated in advance of the 2014 swarming season.

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## fatshark

19/20 hives lost overwinter. Blimey. I wonder how the vibrational signal changes when the colony is 'lost' ... 
flatline.jpg
_Yep. They're dead._

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## The Drone Ranger

> 19/20 hives lost overwinter. Blimey. I wonder how the vibrational signal changes when the colony is 'lost' ... 
> flatline.jpg
> _Yep. They're dead._


That is crap beekeeping at its best an almost total wipe out 

Wonder how you apply an accelerometer without being swamped by movements and vibration from wind rain etc 
You could easily tell if the hive had been blown over or moved though so thats one element of neglect they had covered

Before they started electronic monitoring they should have taken the Honeybadger Basic Beekeeping course

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## Wmfd

Ok, maybe I overstated progress! I thought I had read they'd identified common factors in swarming colonies but that may have been wishful thinking and a too quick skim.

19/20 is pretty horrendous and now the swarm monitor website seems to have disappeared, another winter loss ...

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## Greengage

> Ok, maybe I overstated progress! I thought I had read they'd identified common factors in swarming colonies but that may have been wishful thinking and a too quick skim.
> 
>  now the swarm monitor website seems to have disappeared, another winter loss ...


Thats very funny. :Wink:

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## gavin

I presume that this is just coincidence, the site disappearing as folk here took an interest.  Who knows.  Anyway, there is more on this project (which came to an end just over a month ago) here.  The 19/20 loss was downplayed to 'a number' lost overwinter.  Perhaps they've just proved that hive monitors cause CCD?

http://cordis.europa.eu/result/rcn/149698_en.html

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## The Drone Ranger

First apologies to anyone who is bored by computing heres a little link for you
Its Coldplay ripping off Kraftwerk and getting away with it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FhIG8gwJZ8

For those folk who fancy a bit of DIY hive monitoring 

You could leave this in the hive and just plug in for a look when you wanted 



If you want to listen and the hive isn't too far away you could make one of these


only in rural areas though or the neighbours and the law might visit  :Smile:

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## The Drone Ranger

had a duff link heres Kraftwerk

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## gavin

> If you want to listen and the hive isn't too far away you could make one of these


Any suggestions for a booster so that I can listen in to the mating site 50-60km away?  :Wink: 

Enjoying the tech talk.  All very relevant to some ideas under discussion on getting our mating site monitored better - perhaps even with a weather station.

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## fatshark

Assuming you have a mobile signal up in the hills (which, I appreciate, may *not* be the case ... after all, I've not got one in my lounge) there are cheap (£10-20) GPRS modules that will work with Arduino-chipped setups. I'm out of my depth with Arduino (DR, help me here) but I'm pretty sure you could have a system that ran off a battery, woke up periodically, measured stuff - temperature, humidity, _"am I still in the same place"_ (GPS) - sent it off to the interwebs somewhere and, as if by magic, it would appear on your Apple Watch.

What? You've not got an Apple Watch?

PS Google is my friend ... what about this for starters and more discussion here

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## gavin

I had been charged with asking your advice the other day, but there wasn't enough time  :Smile: .  Sadly, exactly where the hives sit there is no signal (*despite* all those wooden aerials  :Wink: ).  But a weather station could go up the hill a little, where we go to make calls. 

If it arrives on my (Android) HTC I'll be _delighted_ (and amazed!).  

The stuff in the links you posted is not terrifying, though the last time I put electronics together from scratch I think I was still at school.  Similar to DR's FM video I made a short-wave transmitter from a piece of cast-off formica, an ex-army (I think) crystal, some bits of wire and a transistor, assorted resistors and capacitors.  Even hooked it up to the output from an old record player via a transformer to give it interesting AM modulation.  Those were the days!  Anyway, Jeff is our technical director, I'll likely leave the technical stuff to him.

Mobile reception is a bit flaky in my lounge too.  Tend to have calls with my head pressed against the front window, scaring the few neighbours that walk by with their dogs.

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## fatshark

This guy has built a weather station and mobile phone/internet link. Really neat. I particularly like the barometric pressure reading from the half-inflated glove. He seems to have windspeed, direction, temperature, pressure and rainfall (at least).

toptal-blog-image-1373445195684.jpg

He made it sound straightforward and seems to have solved all the problems. The system is still working 3 years on. I suspect he's quite clever  :Cool: 

I built one of those FM transmitters with my son. We used it in the middle of a housing estate. The statute of limitations on that crime has now passed ... 

The electronics these days is possibly the more straightforward part of this type of project. You need to be able to write code (or copy and butcher someone else's).

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## The Drone Ranger

Hi Gavin 
You can do it with an a8 gsm tracker
They are about £10 eBay
The options are either it rings your mobile when it hears noise above a preset level
Or you ring it and listen to what it can hear
It's a sort of miniature mobile phone 
The gsm tracking won't work in UK  though
You can have it just text you though

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## The Drone Ranger

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## The Drone Ranger

http://www.mathewjenkinson.co.uk/adv...ni-a8-tracker/

Here's a similar unit but £19 
I wouldn't pay that 
Anyway the customer reviews give an idea of what it can and can't do 
Battery life is short and it switches off when charging so you can't just plug it into a power pack to get more time

Regards Arduino I guess that could be the best way but it would need some research 
Presumably a gsm shield and some sensors will have already been used in a lot of projects
Must do some googling  :Smile: 



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## The Drone Ranger

"The micro to nano SIM adapter is included in the box. It is recommended to power the board with an external power supply that can provide between 700mA and 1000mA. Powering an Arduino and the GSM shield from a USB connection is not recommended, as USB cannot provide the required current when the modem is in heavy use"

That's a little clip from the official Arduino GSM shield blurb £50 (ouch)
You could get a Chinese copy but getting it working would be a big challenge

By all accounts if you use SMS messaging functions its power up/down is faster so its less power hungry
I suspect though if your site has poor mobile signal strength and no mains power then its a car battery or settle for data logging to a sim and reading it into Excel  later 

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## The Drone Ranger

http://www.mathewjenkinson.co.uk/bee...t-development/

This chap is doing the work and it looks like he has thought the problem through
His take on hive monitoring is to use the Raspberry Pi
That will present some power issues I think so car battery or something to budget for lol!

Anyway the project is well down the road and he seems friendly enough so it would be worth reading 
I suspect he would be helpful and might be glad of some collaborators with hives 
What you you think ?
I going to stop swamping this thread with posts now  :Smile: 

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## alclosier

You might want to look at this: https://hackaday.io/project/2453-ard...eehive-monitor

The code would need some tweeking as xively is no longer free but there are various other options to send the data via GPRS. The deep sleep mode was very interesting reading as he goes into great depth about the current draw in different states. I think the pi would draw too much power from the last time I checked.

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## The Drone Ranger

Thanks alclosier
Yes the Pi would need a decent size battery I feel
Dont have much to add at the moment still doing a bit of research
http://digistump.com/oak/
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2621739739...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
Thats a tiny controller that can be programmed with the Arduino IDE
http://www.instructables.com/howto/digispark+attiny+85/

I have ordered one from China £1.25 because I like to make things hard for myself by saving £1.74 on the UK price  :Smile: 
Goodness knows when it will arrive

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## fatshark

Nice one. It's clear there are some winter projects developing ... and that last link even has a basic weather station for Gavin
http://www.instructables.com/id/Mini...with-Attiny85/
Alternatively, someone needs to design a WiFi/GPRS interface for the current system.
forecasting-stone.jpg

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## The Drone Ranger

Hi Fatshark
I was going to ask Gavin to shift these posts to another thread maybe Electronic hive monitoring or something but his mailbox is full 
Must be all the Merry Xmas messages  :Smile: 
http://www.craftsy.com/project/view/...sj&_ctp=177692
You could send one of these into the hive after the varroa  :Smile:

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## gavin

> Hi Fatshark
> I was going to ask Gavin to shift these posts to another thread maybe Electronic hive monitoring or something but his mailbox is full 
> Must be all the Merry Xmas messages 
> http://www.craftsy.com/project/view/...sj&_ctp=177692
> You could send one of these into the hive after the varroa


If only!  Yeah, I'd thought of doing that myself so it will probably happen.  When there is a bit of free time.  I'll clear some inbox space too.

Great set of posts, they deserve a home of their own.

G.

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## The Drone Ranger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=2WERuXROXpU

This is another interesting candidate with (it would appear) all the features built in GSM etc
Linkit One costs £57 though so not cheap
http://www.seeedstudio.com/blog/2014/11/05/10343/
(The official Arduino GSM board is £50 but there are clones for about half that)

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## fatshark

> This is another interesting candidate with (it would appear) all the features built in GSM etc
> Linkit One costs £57 though so not cheap


Hmmm ... tempting feature-set, but poor reviews andnon-compatibility with Arduino issues. Call me old fashioned, but the bleeding edge can sometime be a bleedin' nuisance. I'd usually choose a well-established user-base, good documentation, Mac-compatibility (issues here by the looks of things with the Linkit) and a programming language I at least recognise - perl, python, C ... especially when stepping into the unknown.

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## The Drone Ranger

Hi Fatshark
Take your point just looking around
The raspberry zero might take a while to be available 
It has low power consumption for its spec 

Ordered a tested AT tiny with some connectors from these guys £3-00 inc delivery 
It came next day (today)and they provide all the links for getting it up and running
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/x1-x5-Digi...8XFYE65kGp81Pg
Haven't done much with it yet just soldered the headers and added it to the boards selection in Arduino software
Run a blink sketch after a bit of fiddling with Linux permissions

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## fatshark

Excellent DR. I expect you've seen this Arduino-based temperature and relative humidity sensor. It's based on the DHT22 sensor which they claim isn't very accurate (but don't indicate how inaccurate ... however, someone who has lots of time on his hands has checked the temperature accuracy of these sensors and claims ~0.5oC)). They also have a very much more accurate version (different - much more expensive - sensor) which are based on these boards at 5 for £13 (or about a quid each untested). They make this write to a small SD card, with a claimed battery life of up to a year.

In contrast, I've been very low tech ... I'm busy making soft set honey and printing labels for Christmas  :Big Grin:

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## The Drone Ranger

Hi fatshark
for most purposes the DHT11 looks OK I think ( 2% temp 5%humidity) its about £1.50 
The (DHT22 0.5%temp 2%) humidity is about £3.50 and the bees will probably mess them up anyway

The pro version of the AT tiny boards has a CH40 USB which a lot of the Chinese Arduinos have fitted
I haven’t used one myself but you need to get the driver for it online extra agro possibly
I don’t like downloading stuff like that reminds me of Windows  :Smile: 

This is an UNO clone with a 16U2 usb to serial so same as the genuine board I have one and it seems v good for £5.00
UK based deliver in a couple of days

Ps well done on the honey front I forgot what it looks like Lol!

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## Emma

Would any of the devices you're looking at work for putting a microphone into a hive and streaming the sound into the house/office? That's the type of monitoring I'd most like to try. I briefly tried the Arnia monitors but was disappointed to get graphs rather than raw sound.

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## alclosier

The issue with streaming is power consumption. You would drain a battery powered one in no time. You would probably need a WiFi connection as the GPRS costs would be astronomical.

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## gavin

Just move in to the apiary and get an ear trumpet  :Wink:

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## The Drone Ranger

> Would any of the devices you're looking at work for putting a microphone into a hive and streaming the sound into the house/office? That's the type of monitoring I'd most like to try. I briefly tried the Arnia monitors but was disappointed to get graphs rather than raw sound.


Hi Emma
The simplest device I know of that could do some of what you have in mind is the A8
It works in a couple of ways
The simplest is that you ring it and it sends back what it is hearing nearby
The quality is similar to listening to any mobile phone call

The second mode is it wakes up and rings you when it hears a noise (fixed threshold level I think)
Again you listen to what it can hear 

The third mode is it can send you a text message either one you have given it (not used that function myself)
OR more likely its SOS text message which it sends if the little red SOS button on the side gets pressed
That would need some rigging if you wanted to have it pressed when someone ran off with the hive lol!

I have one somewhere I will dig it out charge it up and have a better idea then (I forget stuff )
One issue is battery life which is about 5 days on standby and less the more calls it makes(as alclosier says)
Course it's using a mobile sim for its texts and calls so you might want to cost that in
I think they are about £10 and have poor reviews because they insist on selling it as a GPS tracker which it definitely is not :Smile: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4k...p=docslist_api
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## The Drone Ranger

Alternative possibly Emma but again not something I have tried
https://youtu.be/msYEo1dXr70

https://youtu.be/BJ0qDzZDxIk
The chap behind this lump logged in and posted in November
I wouldn't buy one but it would be easy enough to cobble something together
Plenty room for an enormous battery  :Smile:

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## alclosier

The other option would be to trickle charge a battery via a solar panel. The electronics off an arduino would be fiddly but there is lots of info put there. However wires everywhere will start to be an issue when working on a hive. I toyed with the idea of using 4 load cells to weigh a hive via arduino but lost interest at the design stage. Sun light is so poor in Scotland at this time of year the solar option would probably be doomed. Summer might be fine. Other option is the extension lead option if at home...

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## Calum

interesting article about varroa ratio bees:brood in winter in the info sheet by Dr. Christoph Otten, Fachzentrum Bienen und Imkerei, Mayen.
"whereas in summer 80-90% of varroa is in the brood, in winter this is known not to be the case"... 
They studied a colony in December with brood (to again validate this knowledge). 
the colony was treated with lactic acid
the 400 closed brood cells were opened and studied. 
from the 400 cells they found 10 varroa mites, 4 of which were breeding. 
From the lactic acid treatment 500 casualties varroa were counted. 
- confirming that treating for varroa in winter even where there is brood will be effective.

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## fatshark

Very interesting Calum. Do you have a link to that (though I suspect my German will not be good enough ...)? Female mites in the presence of brood have a life expectancy of ~27 days. In the absence of brood it's months I believe. I wonder if mites raised in the presence of brood are predominantly committed to the shorter life cycle, or whether - like their bee hosts - 'winterised' mites are reared late in the season to wait out the long broodless period.

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## Calum

hi
here is the link
they are posted regularly here

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## greengumbo

> Very interesting Calum. Do you have a link to that (though I suspect my German will not be good enough ...)? Female mites in the presence of brood have a life expectancy of ~27 days. In the absence of brood it's months I believe. *I wonder if mites raised in the presence of brood* are predominantly committed to the shorter life cycle, or whether - like their bee hosts - 'winterised' mites are reared late in the season to wait out the long broodless period.


I'd like to find these mites raised in the absence of brood  :Wink: 

Seriously though I've thought about this a fair bit in the past. I bet that just as winter bees are physiologically different, winter (or lets call them late autumn raised) mites have a very different physiology - lack of feeding for one thing. Jury is still out on whether they feed at all on adult bees while living phoreticaly. I've PM'd you as well fatshark.

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## fatshark

OK, OK ... I was djrunk ... one possibility might be that mites change their physiology according to the duration of the phoretic stage perhaps. If they're raised (on brood clever clogs  :Wink:  ) and after the usual few days out and about dive into a new cell to make whoopee with themselves then they never change from being 'young' mites physiologically. However, if there's no brood to be had they're 'forced' into a different physiological state.

I guess this might (ho, ho, mite geddit?!) be tested by looking at what happens to and with phoretic mites from a terminally broodless colony when given a frame of eggs/larvae. Do the majority dive in, or only a subset ... and, if so, what's special about them? Are those that are left duds? Presumably not or winter miticides would be less dramatically beneficial than they are.

Which also makes me wonder about the post from Calum. What's the advantage to the mite NOT to be brood-associated in midwinter? If there's brood there surely they'd want to get in and reproduce? What proportion of capped pupae fail during winter? If it's high I can see there'd be an advantage to wait a bit. I'd have thought a heavily infested colony would have a high mite density/cell in the winter. 

Interesting.

PS I thought that phoretic mites did feed on adult bees ... others do to ... though just 'cos it's on the internet doesn't make it true. Didn't Bowen-Walker do some 14C studies??
PPS. I've heard it's witchcraft raising mites in the absence of brood. Only the truly gifted have the knack.

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## The Drone Ranger

Will this otherwise brilliant idea fall down by helping varroa



I must get some of that black tapeto insulate all my exterior wiring and make it safe

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## fatshark

DR, it must be too cold in your part of the world for beekeeping today ...

[drawl]_This idea will end your winter losses_[/drawl] ... at least he's not trying to make any outrageous claims. If he invested in some poly hives he might even be able to cook a chicken in there as well ...

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## The Drone Ranger

You got me 
I did 17 grafts yesterday only 5 takes that was the third go as well
Leaving it at that and moving operations to another hive now
It is cold I should be doing something useful
Bees that were treated with varrox are clear of varroa now but the trickle wasn't as effective 
I did some of both because of the mesh floors 
I'm supposed to do the kitchen ceiling today

No wonder the house is so cold since we put LED bulbs in

That guy cheated anyway 
I'm sure that chicken was already dead

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## fatshark

> Bees that were treated with varrox are clear of varroa now but the trickle wasn't as effective


All mine were vaporised and have reassuringly low mite counts - one full frame (National brood) of drone pupae from one colony had 0 mites in it, another (from a different colony) had just 6. Both these had almost wall-to-wall drone brood. Life was too short to count them, but they were pulled out of the comb individually*. 




> I did 17 grafts yesterday only 5 takes that was the third go as well


I'm waiting until the danger of frostbite has passed before I start grafting ...




* I don't have a life.

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## The Drone Ranger

I think this is about the right time to start queen raising fatshark
It will be June before mating flights Summer ends in July and its all downhill from there Lol!
I'm going with the nicot as soon as the weather picks up
Surely Fife isn't that cold now
Living down south has messed up your internal temperature gauge  :Smile: 

Just checked weather it will be like this for a week

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