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Wonder if it would be economical to put a gps tracker at the bottom of every hive box.

• gspetr 7y ago
  It should be, given the potential loss is about a Grand per hive: "We estimate about a $1,000 per hive — which includes the cost of the future pollination, the honey crop, packaged bees as well," said John Klepps, a hive quality assurance manager with Olivarez Honey Bees.
• hexo 7y ago
  Heard of GPS jammer?
  • dillonmckay 7y ago
    They are called anti-trackers on banggood.
  • microwavecamera 7y ago
    I have a feeling people who steal bees for a living might not be the most technically savvy people.
    • Phlarp 7y ago
      They don't have to know how any of it works, they just have to buy one on a chinese website and plug it into their 12v car port
    • lostlogin 7y ago
      You’d be wrong. Here in NZ it’s being done cleverly. Hitting an apiary and opening hives to take the best frames and switching in drawn comb. Branded frames are left. Tech solutions have been spotted and avoided. It just leaves the site looking poor, not robbed.
      • microwavecamera 7y ago
        More than likely the thieves are people who have worked in the industry so they know how a typical apiary operates and what common security measures are being used. Like any professional, professional criminals focus on crimes that fit their skill set to minimize legal risk and maximize profit. I'm not saying that people who are stealing bees are ignorant or inept. Obviously they're good at what they do or it wouldn't be a problem but we shouldn't assume they're good at all criminal activities. No matter what security measures you take there's always going to be ways to bypass it. Security measures are never a solution to threats but part of a process to minimize the threat. Something like GPS trackers can obviously be defeated but would help mitigate the threat of less skilled apiary thieves thriving on the low hanging fruit of unprotected apiaries. Getting caught using a GPS jammer carries a severe criminal punishment, far worse than just stealing bees. It's a high risk crime that requires technical expertise with major repercussions if you get caught. Criminals that have that level of technical expertise would probably concentrate on more profitable crimes than stealing bees. The goal is to increase the risk of the crime to help minimize the number of people who would attempt it, then concentrate on the few who's left. Security is an often vague process but this is how all security systems work.
  • hahla 7y ago
    You could setup an alert where if the signal is lost for greater then x amount of time or the gps tracker moves more than 10ft set off an alert. You don’t necessarily need to track the boxes once the theft occurs if it’s enough to prevent it.
• b0rsuk 7y ago
  It wouldn't even have to be every hive, just every second or even third. Enough to point to the thief and arrest him. Unless we're talking about thieves which only steal one hive at a time. I also doubt they're selling those hives immediately and each to different buyer. Alternatively, you could have an alarm system which turns on the light (so bees can fly) and sounds the most obnoxious car horn possible, to make bees defend themselves.
• bagacrap 7y ago
  Article says they cost $180 each which is about 18% of the value of hive. Not many security systems I can think of that are that expensive relative to what they're securing.
  • bagacrap 7y ago
    Edit: $130
  • lostlogin 7y ago
    I was wondering about those valuations. $1000 per hive is a lot. A top condition Manuka hive here in New Zealand wouldn’t get particularly close to half that.
  • jonas21 7y ago
    It sounds like the hives are usually stolen en masse, so you could randomly place trackers in a subset of the hives to reduce cost.
• felipemnoa 7y ago
  Since everybody is throwing out ideas mine would be: 1- Put up fake cameras with fake antennas prominently displayed, blinking light included. Include a fake solar panel. Can be obtained for a few dollars. Include a prominent sign that all activities are being recorded by covert and overt security measures. 2- Have a drone make regular trips to photograph the area. I know some company sells drones that can be programmed to do certain activities routinely and to charge themselves autonomously and thus limiting human involvement. Have prominent sign detailing that area is being protected by camera and drone surveillance, covert and overt. 3- Put up a real hidden solar powered video camera with motion detection. Have also some fake ones prominently displayed.
  • lostlogin 7y ago
    It’s hard - many moves are done at night and operators are covered in their PPE. Many sites (where I am) are in extremely dense bush. Cameras on access roads are probably more likely to help.
  • landryraccoon 7y ago
    The problem is that the adversaries are themselves beekeepers or former beekeepers. Fake measures are unlikely to work since the thieves won't be fooled - you have to assume the thieves know almost as much about the countermeasures as the beekepers themselves do. Your ideas are basically assuming that the thieves are amateurs, and amateurs that know nothing about beekeeping aren't going to be able to effectively monetize the bees they steal anyway.
• lostlogin 7y ago
  Site are usually remote, visited infrequently, and contain many hives. They are usually sunny which may help charge batteries, but this needs to be hidden. You could have a gps in the pallet rather than the hive, so the cost goes down per hive. However tracking really needs to be per frame. Some countries require a degree of tracking already as part of their food safety regulations. The ultimate would be a rfid per honey frame, a beekeeper notification if a hive was opened and a gps signal for location. Some operations and placing cameras that are motion activated near access to their sites. This is possibly more helpful.
  • landryraccoon 7y ago
    The GPS tracker can't be easily removed or the thieves would simply remove it. Ideally it's located inside each hive so that you can't reach it without disturbing the bees. If they're on the pallet, the thieves will simply move the hives off the pallet and onto their own. The thieves have already proven to be highly informed about the market so they will know how the GPS trackers work.
    • phil21 7y ago
      I mean these operations already involve heavy equipment and some basic "farmer" mechanical hacker knowledge which is usually quite impressive. It's not really that hard or expensive to create a faraday cage trailer, or simply jam GPS/Cellular (assuming pre-knowledge of the types of trackers used) until you can safely remove the devices. I think it's a good idea to put one in every 10th hive just to make things harder and raise the cost of the theft, but I doubt it would really have a large effect on these operations past the first bust you get using the technology. Cameras and and various real-time alerts (wireless) on access roads and around the site are probably going to be a lot more effective as deterrents in the long view. Hard to evade a few motion detectors even if you know they exist, so long as you were not the one placing them. This of course assumes law enforcement response times are reasonable - if you get an alert that the site is being disturbed and you confirm on your hidden camera, the police still need to get there within 15-30 minutes to have a hope of catching anyone remotely prepared.