HiveGuard

HiveGuard

Bioacoustic Beehive Intelligence

Know what's happening inside your hives — without opening them.

In Development

Development Status: HiveGuard is in active development and field testing. The hardware, firmware, and cloud platform are functional. Check back for updates on availability.

Overview

HiveGuard listens to your bees. Using research-grade bioacoustic analysis running entirely on-device, it identifies queen status, swarming intent, and colony stress in real time — without opening the hive. Combined with environmental sensors and hive weight tracking, HiveGuard gives beekeepers and researchers a complete picture of colony health.

Data syncs to the cloud for long-term trend analysis across your entire apiary. The web portal supports both Beekeeper Mode (plain-language health summaries and actionable guidance) and Researcher Mode (raw spectral features, full CSV exports, frequency band analysis, and classification confidence scores). Designed for the field — weatherproof, battery-powered, and built to run for months.

Features

  • Advanced Acoustic Analysis: Research-grade spectral analysis with mel-frequency decomposition and multi-frame averaging — all processing runs on-device at the edge, no cloud dependency
  • Queen Detection: Proprietary harmonic analysis identifies queen piping with high confidence — confirmed against multiple spectral features to minimise false positives
  • Swarm Prediction: Detects pre-swarm acoustic events that simple averaging misses, with circadian-adjusted thresholds that adapt to normal daily activity patterns
  • Predictive Expansion: Tells you when to add supers by tracking weight gain, foraging intensity, and colony growth — 3 to 5 days notice before the colony gets congested
  • Tiered Alert System: Approaching, warning, and critical alerts with tappable detail cards explaining exactly what triggered the alert and what action to take
  • Smart Alerts: Weather-aware filtering automatically excludes rain, wind, and storm readings — colony scores reflect real bee behaviour, not the forecast
  • 3-Point Audio Calibration: Silence → empty hive → healthy colony. Each profile is stored on-device and applied automatically on every boot — adapts to your specific device, hive, and bee species. Supports European, African, Carniolan, Italian, and custom profiles
  • Dual-Mode Cloud Portal: Beekeeper Mode shows plain-language health summaries and AI recommendations. Researcher Mode exposes raw spectral features, classification confidence, band energy distributions, and full CSV data exports
  • AI-Powered Colony Reports: Detailed health assessments written in plain language with specific findings and actionable recommendations, tailored to your colony's data
  • Environmental Monitoring: Tracks temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure with configurable alert thresholds and approaching-threshold warnings
  • Hive Weight: Load cell integration detects nectar flows, consumption patterns, and sudden weight drops that indicate swarming
  • Mobile App & Cloud Dashboard: Live data on your phone via Bluetooth with real-time spectral visualisation, plus a web portal to monitor all your hives from anywhere

How It Works

Listen

A high-sensitivity MEMS microphone inside the hive captures the colony's acoustic signature continuously — with enough frequency resolution to distinguish queen piping from worker buzz

Analyse

On-device classification analyses every audio frame in real time using proprietary spectral algorithms — no cloud dependency, no latency, works offline

Calibrate

Three-point calibration (silence, empty hive, healthy colony) establishes per-device baselines stored on-device. Calibration profiles persist across reboots and adapt to your specific hive and bee species

Alert

Tiered alerts (approaching, warning, critical) notify you only when confident. Walk up to the hive and see live spectral data via Bluetooth

Track

Comprehensive data logging on-device for months. Data syncs to the cloud portal where AI generates plain-language colony reports or raw spectral exports for research

What HiveGuard Can Tell You

Queen Present

Confirms your queen is active and the colony is queenright — the foundation of a healthy hive

Swarm Warning

Detects pre-swarm behaviour days in advance, giving you time to split the hive or take preventive action

Queen Lost

Alerts you when the colony shows signs of queenlessness — critical for timely requeening

Colony Stress

Identifies stressed or agitated colonies that may be dealing with disease, pests, or environmental threats

Nectar Flow

Weight tracking shows when foragers are bringing in nectar — know the best time to add supers

Environmental Conditions

Temperature and humidity trends help you understand how weather affects your colonies

What Makes HiveGuard Different

Most hive monitors on the market measure temperature and weight. HiveGuard goes further — it listens to your bees and translates what they're telling you into plain language guidance.

Bee Language Translation

Other monitors tell you the temperature. HiveGuard tells you the queen is missing, your colony needs more space, or robbing is underway. It decodes the acoustic language of the colony and translates it into actions you can take

Weather-Aware Intelligence

Rain and wind contaminate every acoustic hive monitor. HiveGuard is the only system that automatically detects weather events, flags affected readings, and excludes them from health assessments — your colony data reflects real bee behaviour, not the forecast

Calibrated Per Colony

A three-point calibration system learns the unique sound profile of your specific device, hive, and bee species. African bees sound different from European bees — HiveGuard adapts to each colony instead of using generic thresholds

Predictive Expansion

Tells you when to add supers before the colony gets congested — not after. By tracking weight gain, foraging intensity, and activity trends, HiveGuard gives you 3 to 5 days notice to act before swarming becomes a risk

AI Colony Reports

Get a detailed health assessment written in plain language — not charts and numbers. The AI reads your colony's data and tells you what's happening, what's concerning, and what to do about it, tailored to your specific hive

Affordable & Accessible

Enterprise-level colony intelligence at a fraction of the cost of competing systems. Designed for beekeepers everywhere — from commercial apiaries to small-scale farmers in East Africa

What's Included

  • HiveGuard monitoring unit with high-sensitivity microphone, environmental sensors, and low-power processor running on-device colony analysis
  • Weight sensing support via load cell for nectar flow and swarming detection
  • Weatherproof enclosure designed for year-round outdoor use
  • Mobile app for iOS and Android (free) with live Bluetooth dashboard, spectral visualisation, and tiered alert system
  • Cloud portal with dual modes — Beekeeper (plain language) and Researcher (raw data) — plus AI colony reports
  • On-device data logging with months of storage for offline operation in remote apiaries
  • Battery-powered with ultra-low-power design — months of field life, solar-ready for permanent installations
  • 3-point audio calibration — per-device, per-hive, per-species accuracy that persists across reboots

Applications

Hobbyist Beekeepers

Know what's happening inside your hives without opening them — reduce disturbance and spot problems early

Commercial Apiaries

Monitor hundreds of hives remotely, prioritise inspections, and reduce colony losses across your operation

Research & Conservation

Researcher Mode exposes raw spectral features, band energies, and classification confidence scores. Export comprehensive CSV datasets for your own analysis pipelines. Non-invasive continuous data collection for pollinator studies

Education

Teach students about bee biology and environmental monitoring with real-time colony data

Pollination Services

Verify colony strength and queen status during pollination contracts — accountability built in

Interested in HiveGuard?

HiveGuard is in active development and field testing. Get in touch to learn more, request early access, or discuss research collaboration.