If you want to see the connected hives you should go to the building F.  You will be able to see them through a glass wall, there’s also a webcam filming the hives : touchardinforeseau.serveurhttp.com (copy the link on your browser to see it) or with a QR code available in the CDI. However, if you want to have some information about the temperature, the pressure, the brightness, the humidity and the weight you need to ask a teacher to get their ID of connection.

Last year , the production was small because the weather conditions required weren’t present.

 Now, in 2019 , the beehives are always running , and produce honey which will maybe be sold by the MDL students of the high school.

We interviewed Mr. Hérisson, the school's beekeeper and the teacher who is in charge of the project.

"Where did you get the bees and their queen from?"

"Wednesday the 27th of march, I brought the hives to the apiary of the Mill in Fresnay sur Sarthe near Alençon. It's our beekeeping shop.

At the end of April, the store manager Pascal Foucher brought back a breeding of queens from the Orne and two overwintered colonies.

This means that the queen was born in mid-April and was introduced to a queenless colony that passed winter in the breeding.

May 30th or May 31st, I'll pick up the two colonies at nightfall from the store and I will immediately install them int he school around 22h 23h."

"We heard there were plenty of bee races. What is this one?"

"They are queens of the Buckfast race also called brother Adam, it's a race which was created in Buckfast Abbey in England."

"Could you please tell us how much did these bees cost? "

"A colony cost 195 €"

This week we saw Mr Simier, he explained us what the "bee project" is and we now know more about it. Mr Simier is an IT teacher, when he began to teach, there wasn't a lot of computers in school. Now, in Touchard, there are 1500 computers.

This project was presented to the Board of Directors. The aim is to raise awareness among young people on different themes such as endangered species. It was important to go beyond words and present a concrete project, that's why they decided to build these hives.

Two hives will be built in which there will be 30 000 bees; one in our school and one in another school, to see in which hive the bees live best. The connected hive allows to study the health of bees, by different technics. The first parameter is the indoor temperature, which must be between 34°C and 36°C. If it's too low there may be a microbial infection and if it's too high the larvae are in danger. The second parameter is the weight of the hive, which makes it possible to evaluate their activity. The higher the weight is, the more active are the bees and so, the most healthy.

The inhabitants of Le Mans are mobilizing too! They have proposed and voted for different projects linked to sustainable development, like the connected hives. The town is going to join the project, since a few hives are going to be created and installed in the public gardens of Le Mans. The aim is to set up a video camera inside these hives, so that the inhabitants can see bee's activity.

To study bee's activities in the hive, they use a software entirely created by the BTS (advanced technician's certificate) students. The software has the power of a computer. This is a system that is equipped with several sensors. There is for example a sensor fot the weight: the scale. This scale enables to weigh the quantity of honey produced by the bees. There is also a sensor for the temperature. The software is also equipped with a system that transmits the information obtained by the sensors of the computer. Those information are transferred via the telephone network. Then the informations are automatically saved on a Cloud and retransmitted as graphics.

He told us that they can make a graphic thanks to the values of the Cloud. In a circular graphic, the wind is represented with arrows. The students of BTS and himself can compare values for example the humidity with the temperature. This software has been realised by students BTS. There is also a histogram which accounts for the number of times that we measure the temperature for example. The students have also fabricated a scale to weigh the beehive, it is sensitive to the temperature of the environment. There are sensors in the scale.

We interviewed a person of the high school who is working on the project of the connected hives, and he explained us what it consisted in. There are two on the balcony of  the CDI (school library). There might be another one in a high school of Copenhagen. But the conditions are different, the weather is colder and days are shorter.

This project was created to raise awareness to pupils on the increase of the mortality of bee colonies. This is due to the environmental modifications  and the new treatments against parasites. The life of bee queens spans from 2 to 4 years.

 A hive is constituted of 10 frames. 6 in the center are used by the brood.

The hive is equipped with sensors to measure the health of the bees, they measure the temperature, the pressure, the humidity, the illumination, etc. Then they register them and we can visualize them on a graph thanks to an IT site, developed by the British, called " rasberry pie ". It reads the values, then the program collects, analyzes and reacts to the data. They are transferred by a computer network or by electromagnetic waves. The system " fingspeak " keeps in memory the datas and Internet users can consult them.

It is a very interesting and important project, for bees, for us.

To have more informations about the beehives we asked M. Philippe Simier.

First he told us about the electronic aspect :

With little sensors the connected beehives sends informations to a computer. All these informations can be read with smartphones, tablets and computers on the website of the connected beehives which is http://philippes.ddns.net:8080/

The measured informations are the temperature, the pressure, the  brightness, the humidity and the weight.

After that, the site makes averages and graphs. All the measurements are renewed every 30 minutes. If there is a temperature problem or another problem, the site will send a notification, an e-mail or a SMS.

All of these parameters will be able to compare the living conditions and the productions of the two beehives which will be in Copenhagen and le Mans.

These informations will be tabulated and averaged.

We'll see the differences between the two cities and where bees live better : Copenhagen or Le Mans ?

Then M.Simier told us more about hives

All the hives will be intalled on the balcony of CDI in the building F .

They hope to have enough bees to have some honey even if the hives are in the city center. Since a recent study has proven that there were more bees in the city than in the countryside because, in the countryside the farmers use too much pesticides in their field .

And these pesticides will go up directly to the plants. This can kill the bees or just affect their harvest. So, since in the city there are no persticides, or less than in the countryside, there should normaly be enough bees to create honey .

But the hives are not only created for the honey but also for a project of a BTS class who will place sensors in the hive to measure the temperature, pressure, humidity and brightness and also a scale under the hives to measure the weight , like M.Simier had explain before.

The idea of the hives was thought by a class of BTS last year. It is also them who, in small groups created the sensors, the computer, the balance and the website .

Moreover, solar panels will be installed in order to supply the hives with energy.