Acoustic sensor for beehive monitoring
OwnerTrenton J. Brundageinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method of and system for using sounds produced by bees flying near a beehive entrance enable a beekeeper to assess the operational productivity of the beehive. In a preferred embodiment, the method entails positioning an acoustic pickup device, such as a microphone, at a location to pick up and provide an audio signal representing sounds produced by bees flying around the beehive entrance. The flying bees produce the sounds either while hovering in the vicinity of the beehive or while launching from locations around the beehive entrance to forage for pollen and nectar. The audio signal is analyzed to distinguish the sound of launching flying bees from the sound of ambient background noise.
Claims18
A method of assessing operational productivity of a beehive from which bees populating the beehive launch to forage for pollen and nectar, the beehive having an entrance from which flying bees launch at different times to forage, comprising:
- positioning an acoustic pickup device at a location to pick up and provide an audio signal representing sounds produced by bees flying near the beehive entrance;
- analyzing the audio signal to distinguish sounds representing flying bees launching from locations around the beehive entrance from ambient background noise and to provide indications of flying bee launches;
- counting for each of multiple predetermined temporally spaced apart periods and in response to the flying bee launch indications a number of the flying bees launching from locations around the beehive entrance to produce bee sortie data;
- and
- processing the bee sortie data to determine whether over time the numbers of flying bees launching from locations around the beehive entrance during the predetermined periods fall outside of an operational tolerance and thereby provide an indication of the operational productivity of the beehive.
An acoustic sensor for detecting occurrences of bees launching to forage for pollen and nectar, comprising:
- an acoustic pickup device configured to pick up and provide an audio signal representing sounds produced by bees flying near a location where the acoustic pickup device is placed;
- a processor receiving data corresponding to the audio signal and performing analysis of the data to distinguish sounds representing flying bees launching;
- and
- the analysis including generating a frequency content representation of the audio signal to identify within the frequency content representation an acoustic signature associated with the flying bees, the acoustic signature including frequency harmonics of a fundamental frequency resulting from beating wings of the flying bees;
- and
- detecting in the fundamental frequency a frequency shift that corresponds to a flying bee launching.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.