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.
