TheWaterbug
Getting comfortable
As an amateur beekeeper I'm regularly called on to remove hanging swarms of feral bees from people's trees, mailboxes, gate posts, etc. My typical method is to scrape 90% of the bees into a standard bee box, hope I get the queen in there, and then leave the box on the ground near the original ball of bees until nightfall. If I did get the queen inside, all the other bees will follow her in.
I'd like to have a low-cost way of monitoring their progress remotely during the hours that I'm waiting for this to happen.
Can anyone suggest a relatively low-cost, reliable bundle of stuff that can do this? I think I'd need a camera with built-in cellular, plus a solar panel and a small battery. I'd need the battery because I'd want to check progress in the ~1 hour after sundown to know if the bee traffic has settled down, so I know if it's time to drive back to the site and pick up the box of bees.
I'd like to have a low-cost way of monitoring their progress remotely during the hours that I'm waiting for this to happen.
Can anyone suggest a relatively low-cost, reliable bundle of stuff that can do this? I think I'd need a camera with built-in cellular, plus a solar panel and a small battery. I'd need the battery because I'd want to check progress in the ~1 hour after sundown to know if the bee traffic has settled down, so I know if it's time to drive back to the site and pick up the box of bees.