Automated monitoring of bee behaviour using connected hives: towards a computational apidology

A major difficulty in studying the behaviour of social insects, such as bees, is to collect quantitative data on large numbers of individuals and over long periods of time, in sometimes dark and not easily accessible nests. Over the past decade, connected hives equipped with large sets of sensors to monitor real-time data about bee colony health and environmental conditions have been increasingly used in fundamental research, precision beekeeping and outreach programs. Here, we argue that combining these connected hive systems with automated movement tracking devices to obtain long-term data about the behaviour of bees inside and outside the hive can lead to major breakthroughs by helping discover new behaviours and compare data across labs and species. First, we describe the main sensors and hive parameters commonly used in connected hives used for honey bee and bumblebee colonies. Next, we discuss how developing more integrated systems connecting bees, hives and their environment, will help ask novel fundamental questions on bee behaviour and ecology.