Smart bee hotel features 11 Raspberry Pis
A joint project between ATEA, IBM, and the University in Oslo, Norway has opened a Raspberry Pi-powered bee hotel. Before we get to the Raspberry Pi-powered elements of this excellent conservation project, I need you to read the list of nomenclature afforded to some different parts of this bug bed and breakfast:
- The royal lodge
- The Princess suite
- The wasp waist
- The pollen basket
If you visit the Naturhistorisk Museum’s webpage about the project and scroll a bit to find the longer version of the list above, you’ll see that each room name is a link. You can click down the list and have a look around the hotel via the live embedded video feed from each location.
Eleven Raspberry Pis?!
Ten Raspberry Pis work with individual live-streaming cameras, allowing for a continuous view inside each area of the bee hotel. The eleventh Raspberry Pi powers six “weather stations” — groups of sensor modules located around the perimeter so that the team can monitor the bees’ environment. The data from these allows them to investigate links between changes in bee activity and environmental factors such as temperature.
The hotel also features relay-controlled LED lights — infrared, white, and red — so researchers and viewers at home can see inside.
Why do bees need a high-tech hotel?
The team behind the bee hotel wants more people to learn about wild bees and how we can better take care of them. As discussions around environmental issues have intensified over the years, bees have repeatedly been held up as essential components of our ecosystem that are crucial ingetting food onto our plates, so the researchers focused their efforts on these fascinating insects.
The hotel opened in May 2023 and enjoyed a busy first year, the first guest being a burrowing wasp named Luselise who started building nests in Wasp hole 6. Viewers can watch the live stream to keep up with guests who visit year after year. You can also learn more about the project in this interview with Atea Analytics consultants Hedda and Frida, or in the Bee Hotel feature on the Naturhistorisk Museum website.
