Hub BroodMinder-Cell

01 · WHAT ELSE YOU NEED

Scales and brood sensors

The hub is the bridge between the devices and your phone. Without at least one BroodMinder scale or one brood sensor fitted to a hive, there is nothing to send.

The maker's recommendation for representative data is to equip 3 or 4 hives in an apiary of 30-50. There is no need to instrument them all: you are after the apiary's trend, not the detail of every colony.

02 · WHAT THE WEIGHT CURVE TELLS YOU

The shape says more than the number

A scale is not there to tell you how much honey you have, but to let you read the shape of the curve. The daytime rise marks nectar coming in; the night-time fall is the water the bees evaporate to ripen it.

And two signals show from a distance: a sharp drop of several kilos in broad daylight is a swarm that has left, and a curve that flattens for days means the flow is over. Those two decide whether you go to the apiary tomorrow or next week.

03 · BROOD NEST TEMPERATURE

34.5 °C is the reference

A colony holds its brood nest at around 34.5 °C with remarkable precision, because larval development depends on it. A sensor placed in the nest records that stability.

When the temperature stops being regulated and drifts towards ambient, there is no longer brood to keep warm. It is an early, objective signal that something has happened inside, long before it shows from the outside.

04 · PRESSURE AND THE WEATHER

Why it measures atmospheric pressure

The station records ambient temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure. The first two explain why a given day did or did not bring nectar in; the third is the one that tends to surprise.

Bees react to a falling barometer ahead of a storm and cut back foraging. Cross the weight curve with the pressure curve and a lot of flat days stop looking like a problem with the colony.

05 · IT DOES NOT REPLACE THE INSPECTION

It tells you when to go, not what is inside

This is telemetry, and its limit is worth stating plainly: it does not see varroa, it does not see foulbrood and it does not see the state of the queen. What it does is tell you which hive to go to first and save you wasted trips.

Used that way — to prioritise visits and to understand the season afterwards — it is a serious tool. Used as a substitute for opening the hive, it is not.

06 · BEFORE YOU BUY

The hub is half the system. Check which BroodMinder devices you have or plan to fit, and ask us about the terms of the 4G connection.