Bees are very important for terrestrial ecosystems and, above all, for the subsistence of many crops, due to their ability to pollinate flowers. Currently, the honey bee populations are decreasing due to colony collapse disorder (CCD). The reasons for CCD are not fully known, and as a result, it is essential to obtain all possible information on the environmental conditions surrounding the beehives. On the other hand, it is important to carry out such information gathering as non-intrusively as possible to avoid modifying the bees’ work conditions and to obtain more reliable data. We designed a wireless-sensor networks meet these requirements. We designed a remote monitoring system (called WBee) based on a hierarchical three-level model formed by the wireless node, a local data server, and a cloud data server. WBee is a low-cost, fully scalable, easily deployable system with regard to the number and types of sensors and the number of hives and their geographical distribution. WBee saves the data in each of the levels if there are failures in communication. In addition, the nodes include a backup battery, which allows for further data acquisition and storage in the event of a power outage. Unlike other systems that monitor a single point of a hive, the system we present monitors and stores the temperature and relative humidity of the beehive in three different spots. Additionally, the hive is continuously weighed on a weighing scale. Real-time weight measurement is an innovation in wireless beehive—monitoring systems. We designed an adaptation board to facilitate the connection of the sensors to the node. Through the Internet, researchers and beekeepers can access the cloud data server to find out the condition of their hives in real time.

In this study, the Wbee Sensor System was used to record data from 10 Iberian beehives for two years in southern Spain. These data were used to identify potential conditioning climatic factors of the internal regulatory behavior of the hive and its weight. Categorical principal components analysis (CATPCA) was used to determine the minimum number of those factors able to capture the maximum percentage of variability in the data recorded. Then, categorical regression (CATREG) was used to select the factors that were linearly related to hive internal humidity, temperature and weight to issue predictive regression equations in Iberian bees. Average relative humidity values of 51.7% ± 10.4 and 54.2% ± 11.7 were reported for humidity in the brood nest and in the food area, while average temperatures were 34.3 °C ± 1.5 in the brood nest and 29.9 °C ± 5.8 in the food area. Average beehive weight was 38.2 kg ± 13.6. Some of our data, especially those related to humidity, contrast with previously published results for other studies about bees from Central and northern Europe. Conclusively, certain combinations of climatic factors may condition within hive humidity, temperature and hive weight. Southern Iberian honeybees’ brood nest humidity regulatory capacity could be lower than brood nest thermoregulatory capacity, maintaining values close to 34 °C, even in dry conditions.