What’s the Buzz? Using Mathematical Methods to Monitor the well-being of Honeybees and the Local Environment, a talk by Dr Gordon Hunter (Kingston University London)
Abstract
Honey bees are in trouble! They’re at risk from predators, parasites, diseases and pesticides – and possibly even from mobile phones. This fall in bee numbers doesn’t just mean less honey available for everyone, it also has huge impacts on farming and the natural world – if crops and other plants aren’t pollinated we’re all going to suffer.
This drop in honeybee numbers makes non-invasive monitoring of honeybee health highly desirable. Sadly, commercial solutions are far too expensive for most amateur beekeepers or small farmers. In this talk, I will discuss the analysis and processing of sound, temperature, humidity, natural light level, and air quality signals recorded over several months from a low-cost sensor system designed by my team. This system was originally used to monitor the health and wellbeing of honeybees in a beehive, but we realised it had wider uses, e.g. measuring variations in air quality over time. We have applied signal processing methods based on mathematical techniques such as Fourier analysis and correlations, both to individual signals and to the relationships between them, and have found some interesting patterns within these signals, including insights relating to interactions between the environment and the activities of people living and working in the area. This work shows how a relatively simple and low-cost sensor system can be used to perform monitoring of both bees and the local environment, with a view to improving or preserving the environment, or at least limiting damage to it due to human interventions.
No charge is made to attend meetings; non-IMA members are welcome.
