# Monitoring System Enhancing the Potential of Urban Bekeeping
## 4 Discussion  
The major problem associated with the realization of inside-beehive monitoring was to assure proper conditions for its continuous operation in the beehive environment. There are multiple examples of imaging systems developed for beekeeping. They are mostly  
Figure 12: Beehive weight measurement data, which was collected for 1 day. Figure 13: Impact of heavy rain and the dry-out process on beehive weight. aimed at monitoring honey bees' in-and-out activity [37]. With these systems, lateral traffic may be determined [22], insects can be counted, the position of individual bees may be identified [24], and recognition is possible whether or not bees are carrying pollen sacs [38]. Video monitoring is also applied for parasite detection [23]. The common feature of the imaging systems like these is the equipment mounted outside the beehives. Usually, a special construction is affixed for this purpose to the beehive entrance [22; 23; 24; 38], which includes a camera and additional elements, e.g., for bees traffic pipelining [23; 37] or increasing the visibility of the individual insects in video frames [24; 38]. In this location, the imaging system does not constitute an element of the inside-beehive environment. Therefore it is neither exposed to the beehive's internal atmosphere nor to the massive presence of insects, which is the case for the devices operated inside beehives. While preparing to realize our concept of inside-beehive monitoring, we have found just one reference to the inside-beehive imaging system [39]. It was based on an IR camera and dedicated to periodic use only. Before our system installation, there were worries that honey bees may clog the cameras with the wax or propolis. Such a reaction would imply that long-term camera operation is not possible without periodic replacement. In principle, it would undermine the feasibility of inside-beehive video monitoring. During the test period of the monitoring system operation in the apiary, we did not observe signs of camera non-acceptance by the honey bees. The camera view was not purposefully obscured by the insects. We did not note any exceptional bee grouping or abnormal behavior in the vicinity of these devices However, due to employing very simple cameras, our insight into the functioning of an entire beehive was quite limited. It was obvious when comparing the video transmission and the information obtained from the beehive inspection. Wide-angle cameras and using more than one camera would offer a better view. Different parts of the hive fulfill different functions. Also, the content of an individual comb is not uniform. Taking into account the fact that honey bees are capable of utilizing the free space around the camera for comb formation (see Figure 5), it is possible to use multiple observation frames in the hive, without depriving the insects of their living space. An alternative would be to deploy cameras in the walls of the hive. At the moment we do not know whether cameras placed inside the hive but flush with its walls will meet with equal acceptance of honey bees as those placed in the frame. We must also think of a better camera fixing solution that allows for it to be easily taken out for cleaning, see Figures 10 and 11. Just like in the case of cameras, the placement of multi-sensor devices inside beehives also raised concerns about assuring proper conditions for the operation of these devices. The concerns resulted from our earlier experience in developing sensor devices for varroosis detection based on beehive air measurement [40]. In the course of field experiments, it was observed that the bees tended to leave the deposits of propolis or wax on the gas sampling probes if they remained in the beehive for several hours. In the case of long-term measurements, this could limit the beehive air access to the sampling probe and impair the measurement.