CCD has emphasized the importance of enabling a continuous, multiparametric, and extensive monitoring of the beehives, to investigate factors that may negatively affect the life cycle of bees. The consensus among bee scientists is that the decline of honey bee colonies is the result of multiple stressors, acting independently, in combination, or synergistically to impact honey bee health.

Causes of CCD are not perfectly clarified yet, but mites and viruses, malnutrition, pesticides, beekeeping practices, electromagnetic radiation, and genetically modified crops may be mentioned among the possible ones. For these reasons, it is of the utmost importance to design solutions aimed at preserving and supporting the honey bees’ healthy existence.Ĭolony collapse disorder (CCD) is a recent, pervasive syndrome affecting honey bee colonies in Europe and the rest of the world, which is characterized by a sudden disappearance of honey bees from the hive. These industrious insects do not only produce honey, beeswax, royal jelly, and propolis, but they are at the basis of the plants’ pollination process, playing a key role in the proliferation of both spontaneous and cultivated flora.

The role of honey bees ( Apis mellifera L.) in the natural ecosystem and their importance for the health of the environment and life preservation are well known. This paper presents a multisensor platform designed to measure the aforementioned parameters from beehives deployed in the field, and shows how the fusion of different sensor measurements may provide insights on the status of the colony, its interaction with the surrounding environment, and the influence of climatic conditions. Smart sensor systems are being developed for real-time and long-term measurement of relevant parameters related to beehive conditions, such as the hive weight, sounds emitted by the bees, temperature, humidity, and CO 2 inside the beehive, as well as weather conditions outside.

In fact, honey bees have well-known positive effects on both the environment and human life, and their preservation becomes critical not only for ecological reasons, but also for the social and economic development of rural communities. The widespread decline of honey bee ( Apis mellifera L.) colonies registered in recent years has raised great attention to the need of gathering deeper knowledge about this phenomenon, by observing the colonies’ activity to identify possible causes, and design corresponding countermeasures.

Automatic bee hives