Discrete Time Series Forecasting in Non-Invasive Monitoring of Managed Honey Bee Colonies: Part II: Are Hive Weight and In-Hive Temperature Seasonal and Colony-Specific?

We explored the stationarity, trend, and seasonality of the hive weight and in-hive temperature of ten managed honey bee (<i>Apis mellifera</i>) colonies at a research apiary of the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Tucson, Arizona, USA. The hives were monitored with electronic scales a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Vladimir A. Kulyukin, Aleksey V. Kulyukin, William G. Meikle
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-07-01
Series:Sensors
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/25/14/4319
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1849418001176068096
author Vladimir A. Kulyukin
Aleksey V. Kulyukin
William G. Meikle
author_facet Vladimir A. Kulyukin
Aleksey V. Kulyukin
William G. Meikle
author_sort Vladimir A. Kulyukin
collection DOAJ
description We explored the stationarity, trend, and seasonality of the hive weight and in-hive temperature of ten managed honey bee (<i>Apis mellifera</i>) colonies at a research apiary of the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Tucson, Arizona, USA. The hives were monitored with electronic scales and in-hive temperature sensors from June to October 2022. The weight and temperature were recorded every five minutes around the clock. The collected data were curated into 2160 timestamped weight and 2160 timestamped temperature observations. We performed a systematic autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) time series analysis to answer three fundamental questions: (a) Does seasonality matter in the ARIMA forecasting of hive weight and in-hive temperature? (b) To what extent do the best forecasters of one hive generalize to other hives? and (c) Which time series type (i.e., hive weight or in-hive temperature) is better predictable? Our principal findings were as follows: (1) The hive weight and in-hive temperature series were not white noise, were not normally distributed, and, for most hives, were not difference- or trend-stationary; (2) Seasonality matters, in that seasonal ARIMA (SARIMA) forecasters outperformed their ARIMA counterparts on the curated dataset; (3) The best hive weight and in-hive temperature forecasters of the ten monitored colonies appeared to be colony-specific; (4) The accuracy of the hive weight forecasts was consistently higher than that of the in-hive temperature forecasts; (5) The weight and temperature forecasts exhibited common qualitative patterns.
format Article
id doaj-art-955df9e99bde49458cde5ca6d5016028
institution Kabale University
issn 1424-8220
language English
publishDate 2025-07-01
publisher MDPI AG
record_format Article
series Sensors
spelling doaj-art-955df9e99bde49458cde5ca6d50160282025-08-20T03:32:33ZengMDPI AGSensors1424-82202025-07-012514431910.3390/s25144319Discrete Time Series Forecasting in Non-Invasive Monitoring of Managed Honey Bee Colonies: Part II: Are Hive Weight and In-Hive Temperature Seasonal and Colony-Specific?Vladimir A. Kulyukin0Aleksey V. Kulyukin1William G. Meikle2Department of Computer Science, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322, USADepartment of Mathematics and Statistics, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322, USACarl Hayden Bee Research Center, USDA-ARS, Tucson, AZ 85719, USAWe explored the stationarity, trend, and seasonality of the hive weight and in-hive temperature of ten managed honey bee (<i>Apis mellifera</i>) colonies at a research apiary of the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Tucson, Arizona, USA. The hives were monitored with electronic scales and in-hive temperature sensors from June to October 2022. The weight and temperature were recorded every five minutes around the clock. The collected data were curated into 2160 timestamped weight and 2160 timestamped temperature observations. We performed a systematic autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) time series analysis to answer three fundamental questions: (a) Does seasonality matter in the ARIMA forecasting of hive weight and in-hive temperature? (b) To what extent do the best forecasters of one hive generalize to other hives? and (c) Which time series type (i.e., hive weight or in-hive temperature) is better predictable? Our principal findings were as follows: (1) The hive weight and in-hive temperature series were not white noise, were not normally distributed, and, for most hives, were not difference- or trend-stationary; (2) Seasonality matters, in that seasonal ARIMA (SARIMA) forecasters outperformed their ARIMA counterparts on the curated dataset; (3) The best hive weight and in-hive temperature forecasters of the ten monitored colonies appeared to be colony-specific; (4) The accuracy of the hive weight forecasts was consistently higher than that of the in-hive temperature forecasts; (5) The weight and temperature forecasts exhibited common qualitative patterns.https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/25/14/4319precision apiculturecontinuous beehive monitoringelectronic beehive monitoringsensor-based hive monitoringtime series forecastingARIMA
spellingShingle Vladimir A. Kulyukin
Aleksey V. Kulyukin
William G. Meikle
Discrete Time Series Forecasting in Non-Invasive Monitoring of Managed Honey Bee Colonies: Part II: Are Hive Weight and In-Hive Temperature Seasonal and Colony-Specific?
Sensors
precision apiculture
continuous beehive monitoring
electronic beehive monitoring
sensor-based hive monitoring
time series forecasting
ARIMA
title Discrete Time Series Forecasting in Non-Invasive Monitoring of Managed Honey Bee Colonies: Part II: Are Hive Weight and In-Hive Temperature Seasonal and Colony-Specific?
title_full Discrete Time Series Forecasting in Non-Invasive Monitoring of Managed Honey Bee Colonies: Part II: Are Hive Weight and In-Hive Temperature Seasonal and Colony-Specific?
title_fullStr Discrete Time Series Forecasting in Non-Invasive Monitoring of Managed Honey Bee Colonies: Part II: Are Hive Weight and In-Hive Temperature Seasonal and Colony-Specific?
title_full_unstemmed Discrete Time Series Forecasting in Non-Invasive Monitoring of Managed Honey Bee Colonies: Part II: Are Hive Weight and In-Hive Temperature Seasonal and Colony-Specific?
title_short Discrete Time Series Forecasting in Non-Invasive Monitoring of Managed Honey Bee Colonies: Part II: Are Hive Weight and In-Hive Temperature Seasonal and Colony-Specific?
title_sort discrete time series forecasting in non invasive monitoring of managed honey bee colonies part ii are hive weight and in hive temperature seasonal and colony specific
topic precision apiculture
continuous beehive monitoring
electronic beehive monitoring
sensor-based hive monitoring
time series forecasting
ARIMA
url https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/25/14/4319
work_keys_str_mv AT vladimirakulyukin discretetimeseriesforecastinginnoninvasivemonitoringofmanagedhoneybeecoloniespartiiarehiveweightandinhivetemperatureseasonalandcolonyspecific
AT alekseyvkulyukin discretetimeseriesforecastinginnoninvasivemonitoringofmanagedhoneybeecoloniespartiiarehiveweightandinhivetemperatureseasonalandcolonyspecific
AT williamgmeikle discretetimeseriesforecastinginnoninvasivemonitoringofmanagedhoneybeecoloniespartiiarehiveweightandinhivetemperatureseasonalandcolonyspecific