News ·
Close your hives remotely: the HiveNode entrances pass their test
The HiveNode can now open and close the entrance of a bee or bumblebee hive from HiveWatcher, with a sensor that checks the result. Useful before you spray, and safe: the entrance always reopens by itself.
Before you apply crop protection, you want your bees or bumblebees inside. Today that means walking past every hive and closing it by hand, and remembering to open them all again later. The HiveNode is going to do that for you.
What we tested
Every HiveNode sits at the hive entrance and has two openings it can control: the normal in-and-out opening and an in-only opening. On the workbench we tested the valves that close them. They open and close on a command from HiveWatcher, and a sensor checks whether each valve is really open or closed, so you see the actual state and not just the command.
How it works for a grower
In HiveWatcher you choose a single hive, or a whole section, greenhouse or location at once, and click Close. You choose how long, from half an hour to four hours. You can close the normal opening and the in-only opening separately.
Safe by design
A closed hive must never stay closed by accident. That is why every close command has a time limit: when it runs out, the entrance opens again by itself, also when the connection or the internet drops out. If something fails, the valves go back to open.
What comes next
The valves are now going into the housing of the first complete HiveNodes for the pilots. Want to use this in your greenhouse this season? Request a pilot on our website.