The conventional honey production is dominated by fragmented,small-scale individual farming models.The traditional approach of honey-harvesting involving manual beehive frames extraction,beeswax layer excision and cen...The conventional honey production is dominated by fragmented,small-scale individual farming models.The traditional approach of honey-harvesting involving manual beehive frames extraction,beeswax layer excision and centrifugal honey separation,expose beekeepers to potential bee stings and frequently compromise honeycomb integrity.To address these limitations,we designed an automated honey-harvesting robot capable of autonomous frame extraction and beeswax removal.The robot mainly consists of a mobile mechanism equipped with image recognition for beehive localization,a magnetic adsorption-based beehive frame handling device(60.8 N maximum suction)coupled with a cross-slide mechanism for precise frame manipulation,and a thermal beeswax layer-melting apparatus,with optimal melting parameters(15 m/s airflow at 90℃ for 30 seconds)determined through rigorous thermal flow simulations utilizing FLUENT/Mechanical software.Field experiments demonstrated beehive frames handling success rate exceeding 85%,beeswax layer removal efficacy over 80% and damage of honeycombs below 30%.The experiment results validate the robot's operational reliability and its capacity to automate critical harvesting procedures.This study significantly reduces the labor intensity for beekeepers,effectively eliminates the risk of direct human-bee contact and improves the removal of beeswax layer,thereby catalyzing the modernization of the beekeeping industry.展开更多
基金National Natural Science Foundation of China(31700644)Shandong Province Postdoctoral Innovation Project(SDCX-ZG-202400195)。
文摘The conventional honey production is dominated by fragmented,small-scale individual farming models.The traditional approach of honey-harvesting involving manual beehive frames extraction,beeswax layer excision and centrifugal honey separation,expose beekeepers to potential bee stings and frequently compromise honeycomb integrity.To address these limitations,we designed an automated honey-harvesting robot capable of autonomous frame extraction and beeswax removal.The robot mainly consists of a mobile mechanism equipped with image recognition for beehive localization,a magnetic adsorption-based beehive frame handling device(60.8 N maximum suction)coupled with a cross-slide mechanism for precise frame manipulation,and a thermal beeswax layer-melting apparatus,with optimal melting parameters(15 m/s airflow at 90℃ for 30 seconds)determined through rigorous thermal flow simulations utilizing FLUENT/Mechanical software.Field experiments demonstrated beehive frames handling success rate exceeding 85%,beeswax layer removal efficacy over 80% and damage of honeycombs below 30%.The experiment results validate the robot's operational reliability and its capacity to automate critical harvesting procedures.This study significantly reduces the labor intensity for beekeepers,effectively eliminates the risk of direct human-bee contact and improves the removal of beeswax layer,thereby catalyzing the modernization of the beekeeping industry.
