This Topic is about how we design our data architecture in general and the interfaces with it.

We need to define the specs for interfacing with the data so we can start building a Front End for beekeepers and researchers. Most important in my opinion would be the ease of use for beekeepers and the ability to add data to it.
@brianzable and Jakub : Any idea about which data exactly?

Looks like we are going to work with the phant software - it's written with node.js

we have a subdomain already in the smart citizen project which is also running the servers for our data:

http://data.osbh.smartcitizen.me/

Phant is open source and you can look up the software here:
https://github.com/sparkfun/phant

Here's a small introduction to it. Aparently the sparkfun guys didn't write a full documentation yet.
https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/pushing-data-to-datasparkfuncom/what-is-phant

@Jakub: Do you think that's more or less the core databse you were looking for? Can you work with that?

What type of hardware easily connects to this kind of database? Pi? Arduino?
Something open source?

Anything compatible with the Wiring programming language. The database is compatible with other microcontrollers, but our firmware is set up for the Spark Core at this time and would need to be ported for other hardware.

@ron Yes this is exactly what I was thinking about.

Any idea about which data exactly?

@SenecaUPP can you advise Ron on this? What useful data would users be able to generate by physically checking the hive and logging it into an app? @brianzable I imagine you've already been through this - any thoughts?

@trizcs I have sort of been down this road, although most of my research comes from interviewing beekeepers about their inspection practices. Being a beekeepers myself, I don't really even know which fields I would track aside from humidity and inside outside temp. I'm very interested in the types of data we can collect from sensors so I'm following these discussions closely.

I think we're good on the sensors front - temp, humidity, audio, bee counter, potentially weight being our current sensor goals. I think @ron is wondering about physical inspection practices?

Ah, I missed that part. Here is the data I am currently collecting:

• Time and date of inspection
• Weather conditions at the time of inspection
  • Temperature
  • Condition (Sunny, Cloudy, Rainy, Overcast, etc.)
  • Weather notes (a place for the beekeeper to comment on the weather)
• Overall health of the hive, represented as a number between 1 and 100 (stored as a number between 0 and 1)
• A list of diseases and treatments used
• A notes field for users to leave custom notes
• Flight pattern (where are the bees going?)
• Was the queen sighted? yes or no
• Classification of the brood patter (Good, Fair, Poor)
• Presence of queen cells (yes or no)
• If there are queen cells, what type were they? Swarm cells or supercedure cells
• If there are swarm cells, were they capped?
• Was their honey in the brood chamber? yes or no
• Was their pollen in the brood chamber? yes or no
• The following are currently targeted at langstroth style hives, however, I am working on interfaces for top bar and warre style hives
  • % of honey in a honey super
  • % of honey that is actually capped
  • Is this super ready for harvest?
• Is a queen excluder used? yes or no
• Is an entrance reducer being used? If so, is it a small or large reducer?
• Is the hive ventilated? yes or no
• Breed of the bees
• Type of hive
• Location of the hive (latitude and longitude if the user supplies it AND chooses to share it). If the user does not want to share the exact location of a hive publicly, a city and state is made public. This has to be hidden because beekeeping is illegal in some places and some people are afraid of theft. To encourage people to share their data, I allow this sensitive information to be hidden.

I plan on adding the following:
- Temperament of the bees during an inspection
- Source of the bees (nuc, package, swarm, split) and possibly break this down to distributor/breeder if I can figure out a good way to record this
- Atmospheric pressure and other data fields regarding weather. These are only collected at inspection time right now which isn't the greatest.

I also collect information about harvests but thats less interesting. Mainly time and date of inspection, with totals for the amount of weight of wax and honey.

Please feel free to use that as a base!

@ron, sorry to be so far behind. Data I would log in an app when inspecting a hive would be:

Most important- if the hive has a queen, and if she was spotted herself or identified by the presence of eggs

Brood pattern (strong or spotty)

hive temperament, (calm, irritable, angry etc)

how many new combs have been built since last visit (in a langstroth hive it would be new frames "built out")

the presence of any queen cells (swarm cells or superseder cells + how many)

I would take note of any corrections or treatments I made in the hive

And any final notes or observations?

Does that help?

Meta Data Brainstorming

• Type of beehive
• Bee species
• Geolocation
• Material beehive is made from
• Beehive coating types (acrylic paint, linseed oil, etc.)
• Entrance orientation
• Notes on local landmarks (cellular towers, GMO crop fields, etc.)
• Date and time hives is inspected, sensor data is read, etc.