The Adaptive Environmental Monitoring Network for East Africa (AdEMNEA) Project based at the IoT-ra Lab, Makerere University in partnership the College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology (CEDAT) has spearheaded the development of a system that will remotely monitor the honeybees’ colonies.

This modern bee-hive machine has sensors that measure humidity, Temperature, Weight, Sound and capture Image. With the new technology, a farmer or the controller gets information about his/her apiary remotely via mobile phone.

   

Agatha Turyagyenda, a PhD student developing the smart IoT-enabled system has adopted the piloting approach, deploying the first prototype in a real-world environment at a Bee farmers’ demonstration farm in Kawempe, Kampala.

Agatha Turyagyenda, with the first prototype ready for deployment.

She says the task has been quite successful with the exception of the Power Supply hitch. “We are gathering several data-sets such as sound from the bees, images and videos from the swarming activities around the hive. Weight, humidity as well as temperature have been recorded daily and sent to the central server for analysis”, the PhD student asserted.

In the same vein, Agatha emphasized that the field deployment and piloting approach is meant to;

• Check on the system’s Robustness and Battery Life
• Determine the whether the system could send constant, reliable and consistent data.

“We have attached the solar panel and Lithium Ion batteries to solve the need for constant power supply.” The Engineer remarked.

In compliance with Agatha’s research study and invention, Dr Mary Nsabagwa, a PhD Researcher and computer scientist says the smart honeybee system provides hope for commercial bee farmers, especially those who wish to maximize profits from their distributed and large number of bee hives.

Dr. Mary Nsabangwa, a Resaercher on the AdEMNEA Project and one of Agatha's Supervisors.

“This system provides a fast and efficient solution for understanding the productivity of the bees. Moreover, the quality of honey will improve due to the pesticide measurement capabilities.  Our target is to make sure the system comes at affordable cost to enable the last farmer access and benefit from the solution.” The Computer Scientist asserted.