Precision Apiculture in Mexico, Current Status and Perspectives

Abstract

Beekeeping in Mexico has great socioeconomic and ecological importance, since it is considered as one of the main cattle-raising activities generating foreign exchange, generally this activity is only associated with production of honey, pollen, royal jelly, propolis, but bees are fundamental for a balance of the environment since the bees when obtaining the food of the flowers foment in the plants the capacity to fertilize itself. During 2015 honey exports reached 45 thousand tons with a value of 150 million dollars, volume that represented the most important sale of the last 25 years. Precision beekeeping or Precision Apiculture consists of implementing technologies that allow us to monitor and control the different variables that are involved in this activity. Within these variables we have moisture, temperature, weight, amount of food and all data that may be considered relevant to collect information. Although one of the major limitations to the access of this type of technology is usually its high cost and low knowledge of the beekeeper in the use of these instruments, this type of innovations could contribute to the achievement of higher yields. Therefore, the training and integration of other disciplines in the development of these new technologies is important. To advance towards a much more technological and professionalized beekeeping, an objective that can be achieved through working together among the agents involved. This is the objective of the present study to know the state of precision apiculture in the country and propose alternatives for its implementation, so that the country continues to advance in this segment and is increasingly positioned worldwide.

Full text

International Journal of Recent Development in Engineering and Technology
Website: www.ijrdet.com (ISSN 2347-6435(Online) Volume 6, Issue 1, January 2017)
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Precision Apiculture in Mexico, Current Status and
Perspectives.
Jaime Cuauhtemoc Negrete
Independent Researcher on Issues of Agricultural Mechatronics. Graduate in Agrarian Autonomous Antonio Narro University.
Postgraduate in Faculty of Agronomy Eliseu Maciel of Ufpel, Brazil.
Abstract—Beekeeping in Mexico has great socioeconomic
and ecological importance, since it is considered as one of the
main cattle-raising activities generating foreign exchange,
generally this activity is only associated with production of
honey, pollen, royal jelly, propolis, but bees are fundamental
for a balance of the environment since the bees when
obtaining the food of the flowers foment in the plants the
capacity to fertilize itself. During 2015 honey exports reached
45 thousand tons with a value of 150 million dollars, volume
that represented the most important sale of the last 25 years .
Precision beekeeping or Precision Apiculture consists of
implementing technologies that allow us to monitor and
control the different variables that are involved in this
activity. Within these variables we have moisture,
temperature, weight, amount of food and all data that may be
considered relevant to collect information. Although one of
the major limitations to the access of this type of technology is
usually its high cost and low knowledge of the beekeeper in
the use of these instruments, this type of innovations could
contribute to the achievement of higher yields . Therefore, the
training and integration of other disciplines in the
development of these new technologies is important. To
advance towards a much more technological and
professionalized beekeeping, an objective that can be achieved
through working together among the agents involved. This is
the objective of the present study to know the state of
precision apiculture in the country and propose alternatives
for its implementation, so that the country continues to
advance in this segment and is increasingly positioned
worldwide.
Keywords—Apiculture, México, Precision Beekeeping,
Mechatronics.
I. INTRODUCTION
[1] Mexican apiculture is a millenarian activity that
contributes to the economic, social and ecological welfare
of the production regions.. On the other hand, no
suggestion for technological transformation in this sector
are known.
Beekeeping in Mexico has great socioeconomic and
ecological importance, since it is considered as one of the
main cattle-raising activities generating foreign exchange,
generally this activity is only associated with production of
honey, pollen, royal jelly, propolis, but bees are
fundamental for a balance of the environment since the
bees when obtaining the food of the flowers foment in the
plants the capacity to fertilize itself. During 2015 honey
exports reached 45 thousand tons with a value of 150
million dollars, volume that represented the most important
sale of the last 25 years. Regarding production, last year
there were 61 thousand 881 tonnes, a figure that exceeded
In almost 5 thousand tons to the obtained in the last five
years, that was of 57 thousand tons annually; Mexico is still
sixth in terms of production, and the third largest exporter.
According to data from the SIAP, the country's beekeepers
set a new record, achieving in 2015 the largest export of
bee honey from the last 25 years [12]. For this production
requires more 78 million colonies of bees distributed In the
463 municipalities of Yucatan, Jalisco and Campeche,
which occupy the top three places in the national
production, in addition to Chiapas, Veracruz, Oaxaca,
Quintana Roo, Puebla, Michoacán and Guerrero, who are
also important producers. 80 percent of the national
production goes to the foreign market, the main
destinations being Germany, which purchases 43 percent of
the exported production; United States, Great Britain,
Northern Ireland, Saudi Arabia and Belgium. Yucatan is
the main producer of honey in Mexico; in the 2015 season
production doubled and the harvest was sold in Europe,
mainly in Germany, where they were shipped near
Thousand tons. [11]. Precision beekeeping is to implement
technologies that allow us to monitor and control the
different variables that are involved in this activity. Within
these variables we have moisture, temperature, weight,
amount of food and all data that may be considered
relevant to collect information.

International Journal of Recent Development in Engineering and Technology
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[2]. Precision beekeeping (AP) is a support system for
the production of the sector, which integrates different
disciplines and consists of a model focused on optimizing
the quality and quantity of bee products, minimizing their
costs through implementation Of more efficient
technologies, to reduce the use of inputs and reduce the
variability of a particular process, in an environmentally
friendly way and arises from the changes that the sector has
undergone and the need to respond exactly to what happens
to the Inside the hive. Although one of the major
limitations to the access of this type of technology is
usually its high cost and low knowledge of the beekeeper in
the use of these instruments, this type of innovations could
contribute to the achievement of higher yields. Therefore,
the training and integration of other disciplines in the
development of these new technologies is important.
Moving towards a much more technological and
professionalized world Beekeeping, a goal that can be
achieved by working together among the agents involved.
As the incorporation of the new apicultural technology is in
its beginnings in this Region, there is significant potential
for the generation of new Models. [3]. This is the objective
of the present work to know the state of precision
agriculture in the country and propose alternatives for its
implementation, so that the country continues to advance in
this segment and is increasingly positioned world wide.
II. BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE
2.1 Precision apiculture in the world
Precision Apiculture o Precision beekeeping (PB) is an
apiary management strategy based on the monitoring of
individual bee colonies to minimize the resource
consumption and maximize the productivity. The main
task of the PB is to develop real time on -line tools for
continuous monitoring and control the bee behavior using
the individual access to the objects avoiding exposure of
bees to additional stress or unproductive activities. It is not
possible and it is not necessary to monitor each and every
one of the bees individually, and that is why the object PB
is a colony. Similiar to precision agriculture also precision
beekeeping can be considered as a three-phase cycle(data
adquisition, data analysis and application),where the first
phase-data acquisition has an important role. Then, based
on the measured data and taking into account the expert
knowledge it becomes possible to conclude about the
colony behavior and developing process, [14].
Bee colonies can be automatic scaned using diverse
techniques And methods. In scheme architectures sensor's
data assembly can vary – data transmission (wired or
wireless technologies), data packing and usage of middle
devices. A particular checking system can also be
supplemented with decision care system, which is liable for
data analysis, bee colony state determination and correct
decision selection. Temperature is the element that can be
easily monitored and it is economically achievable. Bee
colony temperature checking can be completed using
several information tools, systems and methods. This paper
describes several methodologies, including on-site and
distant temperature nursing, how bee colony temperature
data can be transmitted to the beekeeper for real-time data
observing. Aim of this paper is to differentiate diverse
system architectures for real time bee colony temperature
observing. Apiary monitoring can afford useful information
for persons associated with beekeeping to help to succeed
their honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies. The information
acquired from the nursing process can contain data about
beehive's temperature, humidity, weight etc. Such a
monitoring system is a useful instrument in Precision
Beekeeping. Honey bee colonies can be checked using
numerous system architectures that are diverse in methods
and methods. Meanwhile there are numerous monitoring
system architectures, beekeeper himself should choose the
one that costumes his needs. [5]. Developed six system
architectures for bee colony temperature monitoring
showed how different the monitoring systems can be, e. g.,
since monitoring when using only a sensor with a
exhibition (first approach), to tactic when using specific
devices for each hive (sixth approach) and accomplishment
data analysis. Beekeepers individually should choose the
appropriate system architecture for bee colony monitoring,
based on their needs and financial calculations and
available technologies in the apiary’s location. The
established selection algorithm can reduce the time that is
needed to choose the suitable system architecture because it
offers the key conditions that are necessary for specific
system architecture. The algorithm does not afford
information about the financial calculations while choosing
the system architecture, as the calculations depend on
different issues (the count of hives, chosen technologies (in
the case of interface devices – type and count) etc.). In that
way the algorithm can be supplemented by this type of
information.

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Honey bee colony improvement. It is important to
remotely detect different states of the bee colonies, like
developmental states, several events, that may require
beekeeper’s actions, including swarming, extreme nectar
flow, queen less states etc. Although there are sufficient
technical means (different sensors, specific measurement
systems, monitoring systems) and industrial products for
the practical execution of PB, the implementation process
is slow due to the differing states of development of three
implementation phases: data collection, which is the most
developed and advances phase to this moment, data
analysis and submission. Presently available PB systems
are not widely used because of numerous reasons: technical
systems are complicated for beekeepers; benefits of usage
of systems are not clear and there are additional operational
costs of systems. The advance and practical application of
decision support systems (DSS), which is usually a
stumbling block in Precision Agriculture, is proposed to be
an important mission. In the long term perspective, specific
DSS-controlled electronic procedures should be developed
to enable new functionalities for PB. Precise classes of
actors are proposed to operate within future PB systems for
the automatic execution of suggestions made by decision
care systems, as well as for diagnostic purposes. PB
systems should be optimized by searching for suitable
blends of different sensors, and agreeing decision support
systems must distribute convenient, reliable and cost
efficient solutions. The development and specification of
PB systems should consider business interests, distance to
the apiary, expected risks and other peculiarities. The
future implementation of the PB approach is determined by
several factors: convenience of PB technology
implementation by a beekeepers and clear economic
welfares by which, the controls of return on investment can
be consistent. The second point needs scientific energies to
increase the consistency of data analysis and suggestions
made by DSS. [6].
Several technologies can be applied for monitoring the
bee colony and application of data gathering phase. [9].
The data collection process in PB can be categorized into
three groups [15] ;1) apiary-level parameters
(meteorological parameters and video observation); 2)
colony-level factors (temperature, humidity, gas content,
sound, video, vibration of hive and weight); 3) individual
bee-related considerations (the number of incoming/
outgoing bees, the number of bees in the hive entrance
area). Temperature measurements of bee colonies have the
stretched history. Currently, bee colony temperature
measurements seem to be the humblest and inexpensive
way to monitor bee colonies.
The little costs of data collection, processing and data
handover of temperature measurement systems facilitate
request of temperature measurements in beekeeping.
Monitoring of the bee colony temperature can be
performed using various approaches and tools: 1) Manual
temperature measurements, measurements by different
loggers and iButtons; 2) Wired sensor networks; 3)
Wireless sensor networks; 4) Infrared imaging.
Temperature data can help to identify such colony states as:
1) death; 2) swarming; 3) brood rearing; 4) broodless state.
Weight nursing of the colony can be checked to identify:
[8]. 1) occurrence of nectar flow during the foraging
season; 2) consumption of food during non-foraging
periods; 3) the occurrence of swarming events through a
decrease in the hive weight; 4) estimation of the number of
foragers. There are two ways of determining the weight of
the colony: 1) automatic measurements, which can be made
using industrial scales; 2) manual weight measurements.
Many procedures and approaches have been developed
for sound analysis but they are not extensively applied in
industrial beekeeping. So far, the solutions seem to work
only in the hands of researchers. The aim for this may be
the great stochastic component in the buzz of a colony and
the complexity of sound analysis. As well means of a
humble transducer secured to the outside wall of a hive, a
set of statistically independent immediate vibration signals
of honey bees can be identified and supervised in time
using a fully automatic and non-invasive technique. [1]
Nursing physical variables linked with honeybee
colonies, counting weight, temperature, humidity,
respiratory gases, vibration, sound, and forager traffic, in a
continuous way is becoming probable for most researchers
as the cost and size of electronic sensors reduction while
their precision and capacity growth. Researchers have
taken different methods to accumulating and studying the
resulting datasets, with a view toward mining information
on colony behavior and phenology. The objective of this
review is to inspect critically the different categories of
data and data analyses, providing researchers with better-
informed choices for obtaining information on colony
phenology in the field without alarming the hive, and for
joining information from different categories of sensors to
obtain a more complete image of colony status.[10]
Beekeeping is old and old-style branch of agriculture
where still many manual operations are done to attention
bee colonies and perceive the apiary state and conditions.
Information tools can be used in the beekeeping to partially
care the beekeepers by application of automatic or semi-
automatic resolutions for bee colony monitoring.

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Like to Precision Agriculture likewise Precision
Beekeeping (Precision Apiculture) is recently defined as an
apiary administration strategy based on the nursing of
individual bee colonies to reduce resource consumption and
maximize the efficiency of bees. International scientists
and practical beekeepers started to care its expansion by
application of several technical systems for programmed
and real time bee apiary and colony monitoring.[16].
2.2. Precision Apiculture in America.
In America, only Argentina and Chile currently have the
precision beekeeping project;
2.2.1 Precision Apiculture In Argentina. in the
electronics laboratory of the Institute of Rural Engineering
of INTA initiated the project of monitoring the production
of hives, with the electronic development for the
acquisition of data of weight of beehives. Apiculture
products have apiaries dispersed in large geographic areas
that Require periodic visits with the corresponding
expenses incurentes.Por that was developed a low-cost
balance for monitoring the weights of hives in real time,
with data transmission by cell and alarms and consultations
by SMS, and a historical evolution of weight journal of the
hive .[7].
The development of a beehive monitoring system is
being carried out at the Experimental Agricultural Station
of INTA in Concepción del Uruguay. The project aims to
provide solutions to problems that lead to a decrease in the
bee population worldwide, such as Collapse syndrome of
the hives; The melting of honeycombs due to high
temperatures, in particular in the northern provinces of the
Argentine Republic, and to obtain information that relates
these variables with health aspects of the colony. On the
other hand, it is intended to incorporate the collection of
data and its registration, in the transport of honey from the
origin to its final destination, facilitating the traceability,
with the consequent added value to the bee products and
thus ensuring their quality. Participating among other
institutions are the Faculty of Bioengineering of the
National University of Entre Ríos and the beekeeping
cooperatives of Villa Elisa, Gualeguaychú and Paraná. The
project has articulation with the National Apiculture
Program (PROAPI) and those of regional scope of INTA in
Entre Ríos.Precision Beekeeping is developed through
Temperature and Humidity Monitoring by:
1.-Incorporation of technologies and techniques for
monitoring and controlling the different variables involved
in the beekeeping activity: 1.-Temperature 2.-Moisture
3.-Weight 4.-Amount of food 5.-Open hive 6.-Population
7 .-Sound
For the above by protection and location of sensors
through the use of SOFTWARE through
1.-Applications for mobile devices 2.-Alarms via E-mail or
SMS
Adventages and applications
1.-Research; (Early detection of diseases, Environmental
effects on the hive, New hive designs)
2.-Economic- Productive (Traceability, Activity Log
(software), Beekeeper monitors hives from home (Low /
High temperature, Open Hive, Amount of food 3.-In-situ
data visualization), Hive .[2].
2.2.2 Use of precision beekeeping tools in Chile
Applications have been developed that have improved
the management of beehives, an example of this is "Bee
Record", developed by the Beekeeping Technological
Development Consortium. It consists of a voice recognition
application for recording the information collected by the
beekeeper at the time of monitoring their hives. It is a free
cell phone that, through the recognition of the voice, serves
to keep a record and generate reports that help to safeguard
the traceability. An experience related to the use of GIS is
the "Geographic System of National Apicultural
Consultation" of the Agricultural and Livestock Service,
created mainly to inform the beekeepers registered in the
Ramex register on the distance to which they are located of
the seedlings of biotechnological crops .[13].
2.2.3 Precision Apiculture in México
In Mexico there is only one work related to precision
beekeeping. [4]. He proposed a system by means of digital
signal processing for the improvement of the production of
honey. First, the acquisition of data of the hive (signal in
time, temperature and weight), then the augmention and
refine of the signal . In time to switch to analogue digital
conversion of the input signals and we end with the
processing of all the data obtained from the hive to be able
to store, analyze, transmit or only show the states of the
hive. A block diagram is shown in Figure 1 below with the
development of the proposed solution.

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Fig. 1 Improvement of honey production through digital signal
processing. Source [4].
III. DISCUSSION
In Mexico the technology used in apiculture, is diverse
and it is also a copy from that others countries, which has
led to technical failures preventing to achieve a higher
productivity .It is evident that research on precision
apiculture in Mexico is reduced to one thesis work mainly
and some graduate, but institutions with the capacity to do
this kind of research to create technology have no interest
in the apiculture sector, due to the fact that they have not
realized the importance of the matter and minimizing the
situation that before the large-scale growth that is taking
this sector would need to import technology, and to act on
it institutions would advance as double profit generated in
the agricultural sector and the technology sector, but these
institutions give little importance to the agricultural sector
and focusing their efforts in the industrial sector, as does
the government, due to the fact the application of the
precision apiculture that generates Employment and foreign
currency to the country in an important way, and the lack
of vision that prevents them from facing the bee production
sector could generate an equal or greater economic
importance of the sector to which they focus.
The government should fomenter partnerships between
educational institutions and companies to generate the
required apiculture production technology, as human
capital has high-level training in those schools of
computation, electronic engineering, control and
mechatronics, which can build applications to precision
apiculture in the country, which became an important
source of jobs for graduates of the afore mentioned
professions.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
Mexico a major producer of apiculture product. Mexico
has the human capital to generate own precision apiculture
technology .The country can also become an exporter of
precision beekeeping technology.
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