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ARS Home » Plains Area » Fargo, North Dakota » Edward T. Schafer Agricultural Research Center » Weed and Insect Biology Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #427062
Research Project: Conservation and Improved Storage Technologies for Pollinators and Other Insects of Agricultural Importance

Location: Weed and Insect Biology Research

Title: A wireless sensor platform for beehive monitoring

Author
item DAS GUPTA, SUDIPTA - North Dakota State University
item ERICKSON, JEFFERY - North Dakota State University
item Rinehart, Joseph
item BRAATAN, BENJAMIN - North Dakota State University
item ESHKABILOV, SULAYMON - North Dakota State University

Submitted to: Sensors
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/10/2026
Publication Date: 3/14/2026
Citation: Das Gupta, S., Erickson, J., Rinehart, J.P., Braatan, B., Eshkabilov, S. 2026. A wireless sensor platform for beehive monitoring. Sensors. https://doi.org/10.3390/s26061846.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/s26061846

Interpretive Summary: In order to make informed decisions about management strategies, pollination managers need ready access to data about their bee hives. Traditional methods of obtaining this information are time consuming, work intensive, and intrusive to the hive. Many teams have developed electronic systems to collect data that can be used as a metric for hive health, but these can have significant impediments to their widespread application, including scalability, cost, power requirements, and the ability to access the data remotely. Here, we describe a new wireless network system that uses a low-cost microprocessor to measure temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide levels inside a hive while making significant improvements in power usage and cloud-based data accessibility, and have demonstrated this system to be robust in field environments. This system is also flexible, allowing additional sensors to be added as needs are identified by end-users.

Technical Abstract: Honey bees are very important to the ecological environment and human society, contributing significantly to biodiversity and global food security, with an estimated annual impact of $15 billion in crop pollination in the United States of America. Over 62% of honey bee colony decline has been observed between June 2024 and February 2025. This study examines the air temperature, relative humidity, and CO2 gas concentration levels inside beehives during summer and winter seasons. A new wireless sensor board for real-time monitoring of honey bee colony health and environmental conditions was designed and tested. The board incorporates NDIR-based SCD30 sensors for CO2, temperature, and humidity monitoring, integrated with a custom-designed two-layer PCB and a Particle ArgonTM microprocessor for Wi-Fi communication. The developed board was tested in summer 2024 and winter 2025 in four beehives to investigate the relationship between external disturbance and bee colony responses. The test study results showed the adequacy of the built sensor board and decent correlations between the applied stimuli and the temperature and CO2 changes inside beehives.