Faidon Filipsson BEng2015-2016

Responsible beekeeping

Project summary

To address these issues we have to practice RESPONSIBLE beekeeping. Making beekeeping more intuitive, natural and ergonomic while still retaining a strong connection between the beekeeper and the bees.

Hive X does just this. It is a redesign of on of the oldest know beehives, the top bar beehive. In a top bar beehive the bees build their comb naturally off top bars (bottom middle) instead of on frames. This is argued to be more natural for the bees as it is as close to their natural comb building in nature. Hive X is a modernized, ergonomic and natural environment. It lets the user know in real time the health of the colony with minimal disturbance to the bees, making it more intuitive for beginners and experienced beekeepers.

T H E P R O B L E M T H E S O L U T I O N

We have all heard the and seen in the newspapers headlines reading: “save the bees! The bees are dying!”. Even if the case is so that the bees are facing a substantial amount of new diseases such as Colony Collapse Disorder and European and American foulbrood, the world bee population is actually increasing slowly. The fad of keeping bees to save

them is in turn more detrimental to the bee population, which the media has influenced.

In modern beekeeping, lots of heavy lifting is involved, where up to 20 kg supers of honey have to be lifted off the hive when it is ready to harvest. The average age of beekeepers in the UK is 57 years. Ergonomics for the beekeeper is not the focus of many of today’s beehives. Attempts to make it easier to fix this have been made but have in turn been damaging to the bees and completely removed any interaction between bees and human which is vital for the well-being of the colony.

F E A T U R E S

Using a electronic weighing system LEDs for each individual frame let the user know when

they are ready to be harvested

The top bars have been redesigned to be cantilevered thus making in-spection easer as the user does not need to remove the frame to inspect it. If the frame is removed it slides out rather than being lifted. This makes for a overall more ergonomic design.

If Wifi is available, the user can download an app that shows real-time weights of each individual frame and a time lapse of the total weight of the hive. From this the beekeeper can determine the health of the hive. For busy beekeepers it is also a great way to beekeep on the go!

If Wifi is not available the total weight of the hive is displayed in a compart-ment on the back of the hive. The compartment also houses all the electronics

I N S I G H T SM A R K E T

In the UK today, the most commonly used beehive is the UK National beehive which is based on Lorenzo Langstroth 1852 patent. Another common hive type in the UK is the top bar beehive. The top bar beehive is a horizontal, single story frame-less hive where the bees build their own comb on removal bars. This feature makes the top bar beehive more popular with beekeepers that want to retain a more nat-ural environment for the bees. It is a design for beekeepers and keeper of bees. The first mention a top bar beehive is from the memoirs of Jacques Spon while visited Greece in 1676. As it is a method that is still used today it pre-dates all other current methods of beekeeping and designs of beehives. The design of the top bar beehive has also been proven to be more pop-ular in developing countries as the manufacture and the measure-ments are much less complex than more most of today beehives. However, since the comb hang freely from the top bar with no side support the user has to practice more caution handling the frames. If when inspecting the comb, the top bar is moved too quickly or ineptly the comb can break off the guide. Speaking to expert beekeepers this makes the top bar beehive less popular among beginners.

U S E R SBeekeeping has become very popular with the younger generation, especial-ly after the great media attention colony collapse disorder got. Yet, the aver-age age of the beekeeper in the UK is 57 years old. The gender distribution is about 50/50. According to a report by the National Bee Unit (NBU) 44% of all owning hives asked had not had prior beekeeping training.

From user research it was also found that the most common areas of con-cern within beekeeping are:

“Lots of heavy lifting!”“It is hard to find the time!”

With Hive X:

Great design!

Useful for us older beekeepers!

C O N C E P T D E V E L O P M E N T

From talking to users, the removal of heavy lifting was an early con-cept development. Early ideas were to have a way to indicate to users when the hive was ready to be harvested so one would not need to lift the frames constantly to check.

The use of LEDs together with a load cell was chosen. Springs were initially thought of but after talking to beekeepers there was a fear that the mechanisms might be clogged up by the bees building blocks, propolis

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To make the design more accessible to peo-ple of all ages a redesign into the ergonomics of the beehive was looked into. As mentioned, the top bar beehive does not contain a brood chamber or a super as the bees will naturally di-vide the hive, hence some of the lifting required in a Langstroth type hive is removed. In a UK national hive or a traditional top bar beehive, when the beekeeper is to examine a frame or a

bar, they will need to lift the frame straight up, however, many beehives are placed directly on the ground this would require a forward bending motion by the user.

P R O T O T Y P I N G

Prototyping Hive X in a 1:1 functional proto-type was done in the GSA workshop using MDF instead of cedar (due to availability). Each part was cut into shape then screws and glued together. Dowel joints would have been used in a marketed version for easy home assembly.

Hx711 - load cell amplifier. Amplifies the input from the load cell to give the Arduino a clear reading

5 Kg Load cell

Arduino Uno microcontroller

Multi-colour-ed LED

Arduino LCD screen

Schematics for the load cell and micro controller

T E C H N I C A L C H A L L E N G E S

From the results of the two FEA test we can see that there is a clear difference and improvement of adding a brace to the design of the hive. The maximum Von Mises stress’ in the model with no brace is spread between a compression force on the underside of the top bar and a tensile force on the top side. In the model with no brace the maximum Von Mises stress are 1.46 MPa while in the model with a brace the Von Mises stress are decreased down to 0.9 MPa and limited to a tensile force on the top side of the top bar. The yield strength for cedar is 48.3 MPa. From this data we can see that both designs would withstand the weight of the honey. With the brace, however, there will be a longer service life of the top bar and a less likely deformation due to fatigue failure. It will also assist in the stability of the top bar when it is being removed or reinserted. Consideration has also to be taken to unpredict-able external forces such as human error or movement of the hive so the design with the least total stresses and highest stability is preferred. The maximum deflection on both the models are relatively minimal: 0.2 mm on the model with a brace and 0.4 mm on the model without a brace. However, it is worth noting that the model without a brace has a deflection double of that with a brace.

Cantilever top bar

For this project the cheapest and most lightweight wood was to be found. Granta’s CES (Cambridge engineering selector) was used to narrow down the selections of wood. To simplify, results from research was used to find the most common woods for beehive construction and most accessible woods in the UK. Three soft woods were narrowed down to: cedar, fir and pine. The three choices were firstly plotted on a graph of density against price in CES:

However, the woods natural properties have to be taken into account as well. Cedar is almost completely main-tenance free whereas for pine, careful maintenance is required to potentially have the same service life as cedar. Cedar also, compared to pine, has a very high natural oil content and a relatively tight grain making it more water resistant and optimal for outdoor usage. For pine, it is recommended that the beehive is coated with raw linseed oil to insulate from water and keep the hive warmer over winter. In the end cedar is the preferable material as the durability and the light weight characteristics overweigh the price. In the long run a more durable material will benefit the user economically. According to David cedar in a beehive will last approximately twice as long pine in the UK negating the extra cost of cedar for this project.

Material

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A S S E M B L Y I N S T R U C T I O N S

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The user checks the app to see the latest weights from the hive

The user checks the LEDs on the outside of the hive to see what frames are ready to be harvested

The user can inspect the hive. Compared to traditional top bar beehives the user can see the comb on each frame as soon as he opens the hive as the frames are elevated. No lifting of the frames is required!

Since the comb on the frame is fragile, the less they are moved about the better.

Once at the hive the user can check the backside compartment where a digital number display lets the user know the total weight of the hive.

The user can remove the frames without lifting them if needed

Beekeeping done for the day with mini-mal disturbance to the bees

U S E R J O U R N E Y