Remote detection of the swarming of honey bee colonies by single-point temperature monitoring

Precision Beekeeping (or Precision Apiculture) aims to help beekeepers monitor bee colonies remotely and identify different colony states including deviant behaviour. One monitoring target is the remote identification of bee colony swarming since this is one of the factors that can significantly reduce profitability. To identify temperature dynamics and its patterns for swarming detection, ten colonies were constantly monitored for four months from 1 May to 31 August 2015. Nine swarms were observed during experiments. During the warm-up stage, in the last 10–20 min before take-off, a temperature rise by 1.5–3.4 °C from typical range 34–35 °C to range 37–38 °C was registered by a temperature sensor placed above the polyethylene foil covering the upper hive body under the pillow. For all swarming events it was common that a bee colony needs a relatively small amount of time (from 8 to 20 min) to warm up before take-off. It was concluded that a single temperature sensor above the bee nest combined with a proposed decision support algorithm can be used for automatic remote detection of swarming at take-off stage.