Patent Application
20150366169
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mechanisms for monitoring honeybee behaviors, and, more particularly, to a honeybee behavior monitoring device and a honeybee behavior monitoring system for monitoring and analyzing the in-and-out activity of honeybees as they pass through the entrance of a beehive and the hive environment.
2. Description of Related Art
Honeybees are nature's main pollinators of plant breeding, and according to statistics, among the world's 1,500 kinds of crop species, two-thirds of the agricultural crops are pollinated by the honeybees which play a critical role in facilitating plant growths. But in recent years, a syndrome of colony collapse disorder (CCD) phenomenon is frequently heard and reported from around the world that large numbers of honeybees abruptly disappear for unknown reasons. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the activities and habits of honeybee behaviors in order to gain a better understanding and thus able to provide the solutions.
Most research activities on the habits of honeybees in the past were carried out by employing a great deal of manpower for observing various behaviors of honeybees. Such manual methods are not only time-consuming and labor-intensive, but also the staff cannot possibly access bee hives to monitor the situations around the clock. Moreover, the activity of beehives could only be judged and determined by sight and thus is inevitably error-prone and difficult at the same time to attempt to accurately analyze the data of these studies, particularly such method is ineffectual to implement when it comes to studying a large number of honeybees. Therefore, it is highly beneficial to find a precise and efficient monitoring mechanism for carrying out such research on honeybees and the hive environment.
In the conventional method of monitoring honeybees, RFID techniques were typically employed for monitoring honeybees but such techniques are limited to the monitoring of the tagged bees and tend to monitor individual groups of honeybees and not the activity of honeybees within a beehive. The existing methods of observing animals or insects also employ techniques of image recognition or measurement instruments and other sense tests, for example, as shown in Taiwan Patent No. I238653, an ecological monitoring system has been disclosed, in which two light sensors are to be set at the position corresponding to the road, near rivers or other pre-construction site of the work, and also at the rear of a light sensor recording device is configured so that when a moving object passes through the two optical sensors, the optical sensors are activated to start the recording device to take pictures and record the time, location, number and other relevant information of the photo being taken. However, such a mechanism can only confirm whether the observed object has passed a predetermined location, but not able to tell if the object has the behaviors of in-and-out activity or wandering activity about the beehive. Especially the research on honeybee behaviors must be able to accurately identify the number of honeybees entering or leaving from a beehive, so as to determine if the honeybees have decreased or increased in number. However due to the behavior of the honeybees having the tendency to move back and forth from the beehives, the conventional monitoring method is prone to cause an erroneous judgment.
Therefore, it is highly desirable to propose a novel honeybee behavior monitoring mechanism which does not require intensive manpower and is capable of accurately obtaining the required data for honeybee behavioral study in consideration of both the honeybee behaviors and research requirement.
In view of the drawbacks associated with the prior techniques, the invention proposes a honeybee behavior monitoring device which is used to automatically determine the honeybee's in-and-out behavior without the erroneous judgment due to honeybees' behavior, for providing accurate data for honeybee behavioral studies.
In order to achieve the foregoing and other objectives, the honeybee behavior monitoring device is proposed, which is disposed in the beehive, including a first sensing unit and a second sensing unit and a counting unit. The first sensing unit is disposed at an exterior of the entrance of the beehive and generates a first detection signal upon being activated by a bee passing therethrough; the second sensing unit is disposed at an interior of the entrance of the beehive and generates a second detection signal upon activation by a bee passing therethrough; the counting unit receives the first signal of the first sensing unit and the second signal of the second sensing unit and has a departing count, counting the number of honeybees leaving the beehive and an entry count, counting the number of honeybees entering the beehive, wherein when the counting unit receives sequentially the second signal and then the first signal, one count is added to the departing count and a honeybee is judged as leaving the beehive, and when the counting unit receives sequentially the first signal and then the second signal, one count is added to the entry count and a honeybee is judged as entering the beehive.
In one preferred embodiment, the counting unit further includes a timer that is activated upon receipt any one of the first signal and the second signal, so that if the counting unit does not receive any of the first signal and the second signal within a predetermined period of time, the counting unit is activated to cancel the records of the first signal and the second signal.
In another preferred embodiment, the honeybee behavior monitoring device further includes a transmission unit for transmitting the departing count and the entry count to another honeybee behavior monitoring device disposed nearby through a wireless network.
The present invention further proposes a honeybee behavior monitoring system, the monitoring system including at least one honeybee behavior monitoring device, at least one gateway and a rear-end server. Specifically, the at least one honeybee behavior monitoring device is disposed in each beehive for counting and recording the in-and-out activity of the honeybees, wherein the honeybee behavior monitoring device includes a first sensing unit and a second sensing unit, a counting unit and a transmission unit, and wherein the first sensing unit is disposed at an exterior of the entrance of the beehive and generates a first detection signal upon being activated by a bee passing therethrough; the second sensing unit is disposed at an interior of the entrance of the beehive and generates a second detection signal upon being activated by a bee passing therethrough; the counting unit receives the first signal of the first sensing unit and the second signal of the second sensing unit and has a counter for counting the number of honeybees passing in and out of a beehive, wherein when the counting unit receives sequentially the second signal and then the first signal, one count is added to the departing count and a honeybee is judged as leaving the beehive, and when the counting unit receives sequentially the first signal and then the second signal, one count is added to the entry count and a honeybee is judged as entering the beehive.
Further, the transmission unit is adapted to transmit the in-and-out activity counts of honeybees passing through a beehive, the at least one gateway is adapted to receive the in-and-out activity counts of honeybees that are transmitted by the at least one honeybee behavior monitoring device disposed nearby, and further to transmit the counts to the database of the rear-end server for data storage and perform subsequent analysis of honeybee behaviors according to the status of the in-and-out counts provided by the honeybee behavior monitoring device.
In one preferred embodiment, the at least one honeybee behavior monitoring device further includes a sensor node for sensing the environment within and outside of a beehive and generating internal and external environmental data of a beehive which is transmitted through the transmission unit, at least one gateway to the rear end server for the rear-end server to analyze the honeybee behavior according to the in-and-out activity counts and internal and external environmental data of a beehive.
In another preferred embodiment, the data is transmitted between each of the at least one honeybee behavior monitoring devices and between each of the at least one honeybee behavior monitoring devices and each of the at least one gateway via a wireless network.
In still another preferred embodiment, the at least one gateway includes a weather module adapted to monitor the surrounding rain amount, wind direction and speed or temperature near a beehive for generating weather data.
Compared to prior techniques, the honeybee behavior monitoring device of the present invention is characterized by employing two sensing units to obtain the in-and-out counts of honeybees and it can work in concert with a timing mechanism to reduce misjudgments occurred due to abnormal in-and-out activities or wandering activity of honeybees near a beehive in order to realize automatic monitoring and accurate counting of the honeybee behavior monitoring device, thereby reducing manpower while increasing accuracy for data compiling, recording and analysis for research purposes.
Further, the present invention also proposes a honeybee behavior monitoring system wherein each of the honeybee behavior monitoring devices is provided with a sensor node to sense the environment within and outside of a beehive and generate the internal and external environmental data accordingly, and the data relating to the in-and-out activity counts and the internal and external environmental data of a beehive is transmitted through a wireless sensing network to the gateway and finally to the rear-end server in order achieve integrated studies on honeybee behaviors.
The present invention can be more fully understood by reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments, with reference made to the accompanying drawings, wherein:
The following illustrative embodiments are provided to illustrate the disclosure of the present invention, these and other advantages and effects can be understood by persons skilled in the art after reading the disclosure of this specification. Note that the structures, proportions, sizes depicted in the accompanying figures merely serve to illustrate the disclosure of the specification to allow for comprehensive reading without a limitation to the implementation or applications of the present invention, and does not constitute any substantial technical meaning.
Specifically, an infrared disruption mechanism can be used for the first sensing unit 11 and the second sensing unit 12 to determine its activation. When a honeybee passes through the beehive, the infrared light generated by any of the sensing units between two terminal elements is interrupted, allowing the sensing unit to be activated. It should be noted that infrared interruption is merely an implementation and the present invention should not be limited to this implementation means, on the other hand, any other means could be adopted for achieving the same effect.
The counting unit 13 is adapted to receive the first signal generated by the first sensing unit and the second signal generated by the second sensing unit and the counting unit 13 also includes a counter for counting the number of honeybees entering and departing from the beehive, and according to above, the counting unit 13 determines the in-and-out activity of honeybees by means of the first and second sensing signals.
Specifically, a honeybee is estimated to pass through the first sensing unit 11 disposed at an exterior of the entrance and then the second sensing unit 12 disposed at an interior of the entrance when entering into a beehive. Conversely, a honeybee is predicted to pass through the second sensing unit 12 disposed at an interior of the entrance and then the first sensing unit 11 disposed at an exterior of the entrance when departing the beehive. Therefore, when the counting unit 13 receives sequentially the second signal and then the first signal, one count is added to the departing count as a honeybee is judged to be leaving the beehive, whereas when the counting unit 13 receives sequentially the first signal and then the second signal, one count is added to the entry count as a honeybee is judged to enter the beehive. Accordingly, the honeybee behavior monitoring device for recording the in-and-out activity of honeybees provides a real time monitoring for a long period of time thereby reducing the defects of the existing methods of observing by sight, and also the data can be compiled and integrated for subsequent analysis and research purposes.
The storage unit 14 is adapted to store the in-and-out activity counts of honeybees recorded by the counting unit 13. For example, the honeybee behavior monitoring device 1 may employ an SD card module for storing data recorded by the counting unit 13 which will then be transmitted to a server of a remote-end monitoring center. To avoid transmission failures which results in data loss, the data of the departing count and the entry count can be stored in the storage unit 14.
The transmission unit 15 is adapted to transmit the in-and-out activity counts recorded by the counting unit 13 to another honeybee behavior monitoring device disposed nearby. In this embodiment, the transmission unit 15 adopts the concept of a wireless sensing network (WSNs) for data transmission, providing the convenience of transmitting data of the in-and-out activity counts of honeybees to a remote-end monitoring center. In other words, the data is transmitted to the adjacent honeybee behavior monitoring device, and then subsequently transmitted to a central device such as a gateway. It should be noted, wireless sensing network (WSNs) has the advantages of short distance transmission, low cost, low power consumption and easy for installation.
Since the movements of the honeybees are not restricted to a single or a regular movement, the honeybees may wander about a hive, and also move in a reverse direction, the purpose of a timing unit 131 in the counting unit 13 aims to prevent misjudgments of the in-and-out activity counts of honeybees detected by the first sensing unit 11 and the second sensing unit 12.
The timing unit 131 is activated when the counting unit 13 receives one of the first sensing signal or the second sensing signal, so that when the counting unit 13 does not receive either one of the first sensing signal or the second sensing signal within a predetermined period of time, it causes the counting unit 13 to cancel the record of the first sensing signal or the second sensing signal. In other words, in the condition that only one of the first sensing signal or the second sensing signal is received in absence of the other, this indicates that a honeybee is probably wandering about the hive or turning around to leave which may jeopardize the correct judgment of the next and following honeybees passing in and out of the hive if the record of the sensing signal remains unchanged. Therefore, the use of the timing unit 131 can eliminate the previously received signal to prevent misjudgments after a predetermined period of time in the absence of the other sensing signal. The predetermined period of time may be adjusted to any time according to the actual habits of honeybees, usually it can be set between 0.1 second to 1.5 second to effectively reduce the misjudgments of the in-and-out activity counts of honeybees.
Subsequently, when the bee continues to move outward and pass through the first sensing unit 11, the first sensing unit 11 is triggered to change the first sensing signal (Flag_a1) from 0 to 1, such that the second sensing unit 12 is also sequentially triggered to change the second sensing signal (Flag_a2) from 0 to 1, the bee is then judged to depart from the beehive and one count is added to the entry count (Bee_out) while at the same time the first sensing signal (Flag_a1) and the second sensing signal (Flag_a2) are reset to the predetermined value 0. Therefore, the possibility of a misjudgment can be ruled out even if a bee is wandering around a beehive.
Subsequently, when the honeybee continues to move outward in the direction of the first sensing unit 11 and triggers the first sensing unit 11 and thus causes the record to change (Flag_a1=1), and after the second sensing unit 12 (Flag_a2=1) and the first sensing unit 11 (Flag_a1=1) both are caused to sequentially change to 1, it is judged that the honeybee is departing from the hive and one count is added to the entry count (Bee_out) while at the same time both records of the first sensing unit 11 and the second sensing unit 12 are reset to the predetermined value zero to eliminate the possibilities of misjudgments.
Subsequently, when the honeybees continue to move outward in the direction of the first sensing unit 11 to trigger the first sensing unit 11, the record is caused to change (Flag_a1=1) from 0 to 1, such that both the second sensing unit 12 (Flag_a2=1) and the first sensing unit 11 (Flag_a1=1) are caused to sequentially change to 1, it is judged that the honeybee is departing from the hive and one count is added to the entry count (Bee_out), and the records of the first sensing unit 11 and the second sensing unit 12 are reset to the predetermined value zero so as to eliminate the possibilities of misjudgments.
Therefore, to avoid a misjudgment in such a situation, the counting unit of the present invention is further provided with a timer that will automatically reset the counting activity, that is, when any one of the Flags is triggered and changed to 1 for a time longer than a predetermined period of time, the counting unit will automatically reset the Flag to zero. In the above case, because the bee flew back inside the hive again that causes Flag_a2 to remain at 1, this would result in a false count if the Flag is not reset back to zero when another bee enters into the beehive from outside. Therefore, the timer is adapted to reset the Flag_a2 back to zero under certain conditions to avoid false counts. The aforementioned predetermined time may be set in a time interval appropriate for counting the in-and-out activity which may be 1 second, 0.5 seconds, and may be adjusted according to the habits of honeybees.
As shown, the honeybee behavior monitoring system includes at least one honeybee behavior monitoring device 2, at least one gateway 3 and a rear-end server 4, wherein the honeybee behavior monitoring device 2 can be configured within a beehive, and each of the bee behavior monitoring devices 2 includes a first sensing unit 21, a second sensing unit 22, a counting unit 23 and the transmission unit 25. The description of each of these units is similar to those illustrated in
In the present embodiment, the counting unit 23 records the counting of the in-and-out activity of honeybees after the first sensing unit 21 and the sensing unit 22 are sequentially triggered, after which the counting data can be obtained and then transferred to the outside through the transmission unit 25, as described in the previous embodiment that data between two honeybee behavior monitoring devices is transferred through a wireless sensing network, and accordingly, the data is transferred between each of the honeybee behavior monitoring devices 2, 2′, 2″ and between the honeybee behavior monitoring devices 2, 2′, 2″ and the gateway 3 through a wireless sensing network for data transfer.
The gateway 3 can receive the in-and-out activity counts of at least one of the behavior monitoring device 2, 2′, 2″ nearby and the number of the gateway 3 is not limited to one but it can be adjusted to meet the requirements of the configuration of the behavioral monitoring device 2, 2′, 2″.
The rear-end server 4 is adapted to receive the in-and-out activity counts transmitted from at least one gateway 3 for the analysis of honeybee behaviors according to the data relating to the in-and-out activity counts stored in the honeybee behavior monitoring devices 2, 2′, 2″. Specifically, after the gateway 3 receives the data provided by the honeybee behavior monitoring device 2, 2′, 2″ that is regularly transmitted back to the rear-end server 4, the data is uploaded and transferred between the gateway 3 and the rear-end server 4 through a 2.5G network, or as well by means of a general network depending on the circumstances. Therefore, such data is instantaneously transmitted to the rear-end server 4 via a real time monitoring for subsequent data analysis and decision making performed by the rear-end server 4, thereby enabling the research staff to analyze and therefore judge and predict the numbers of honeybees which fail to return to their hives and to extrapolate if there is any occurrence of the Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) or other abnormal conditions.
Each of the honeybee behavior monitoring devices 2, 2′, 2″ can also include a sensor node 26 for sensing internal and external environments of a beehive and the data of the internal and external environments includes information about the temperature and humidity around a beehive. Subsequently, data of the internal and external environments is transferred to the transmission unit 25, and then transferred to the rear-end server 4 via each gateway 3 for further analysis of honeybee behaviors according to the in-and-out activity and the beehive environmental data.
Similarly, the honeybee behavior monitoring device 2 can be provided with a storage unit (not shown) for storing the in-and-out activity counts recorded by the counting unit 23, as well as the internal and external environmental data around a beehive obtained by the sensor node 26 to avoid a dropout situation in the data transfer process. It should be noted that the storage unit may be optionally disposed according to the actual requirement.
In addition, the gateway 3 is also equipped with a weather module 3 (not shown) which can be used to monitor the rainfall, wind direction, wind speed and temperature around the gateway 3 to generate meteorological data which is transferred back to the rear-end server 4 as part of the collective information data for the analysis of bee behaviors for research purposes.
Moreover, the research data analyzed and provided by the rear-end server 4 may be displayed on a website platform for allowing the research staff 5 to access to and view the data via the internet, wherein the relevant research data may include historical data inquiries, such as day statistics, month statistics or year statistics which can be used in conjunction with mapping software such as Google map for conducting dynamic inquiries at different locations to facilitate the joint research with more research staff 5.
In summary, the honeybee behavior monitoring device of the present invention is characterized by employing a plurality of honeybee behavior monitoring devices and two sensing units to obtain the in-and-out counts of honeybees and also the internal and external environmental data of a beehive, or weather information such that the information are digitalized in order to provide more accurate records and facilitate a more accurate analysis. Besides, the honeybee behavior monitoring device of the present invention reduces manpower while increases accuracy for data compiling, recording and analysis for research purposes.
It will be understood that the invention may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from the spirit or central characteristics thereof. The present examples and embodiments, therefore, are to be considered in all respects as illustrative and not restrictive, and the invention is not to be limited to the details given herein.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 103121136 | Jun 2014 | TW | national |
