Bee Sound Detector: An Easy-to-Install, Low-Power, Low-Cost Beehive Conditions Monitoring System
, Konstantinos A. Stefanou 1, Georgios S. Stergios 1, Thomas Katsantas 1 and Sotirios Kontogiannis 2Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript presents a new low-cost, low-power beehive status monitoring system called Bee Sound Detector (BeeSD). The manuscript is not well organized. There are some concerns that should be carefully addressed. Major revision is recommended.
1. There are two Figure 5! The both are not well presented. The font in the first one is illegible. What is in the first column of the second one?
2. Some annotations should be added in Figure 6 so that the picture can correspond to the text in Section 4.
3. Maintenance costs should be discussed. Such an easy-to-install system should be easy-to-maintain as well.
Author Response
Comment 1:
There are two Figure 5! The both are not well presented. The font in the first one is illegible. What is in the first column of the second one?
Response 1:
The figures' enumeration has been corrected, and the font size of the first figure (figure 5)has been increased, so it is now legible.
Comment 2:
Some annotations should be added in Figure 6 so that the picture can correspond to the text in Section 4.
Response 2:
Appropriate annotations have been added to Figure 6, providing information about the hardware explained in section 4 (1st paragraph).
Comment 3:
Maintenance costs should be discussed. Such an easy-to-install system should be easy-to-maintain as well.
Response 3:
Discussion of Maintenance costs has been added in Lines 397-413.
Reviewer 2 Report
The following are the suggestions for the improvement of submitted manuscript.
1. Authors are advised to put some quantitative results in the abstract part.
2. The quality of figure 3 and 5 is not good. In figure 5, the values on x-axis is not visible.
3. The Conclusion part is too long. Please include the main points of the study in point form.
4. The authors are advised to include some qualitative and quantitative results in the conclusion part.
Author Response
Comment 1:
Authors are advised to put some quantitative results in the abstract part.
Response 1:
The authors amended their abstract part mentioning that they achieved the low-cost, low-energy, and easy-install performance indicators set during the BeeSD system's experimentation
Comment 2:
The quality of figure 3 and 5 is not good. In figure 5, the values on x-axis is not visible.
Response 2:
The quality of all figures has been amended. For example, the values on the x-axis of figure 5 (now figure 4) are now visible.
Comment 3:
The Conclusion part is too long. Please include the main points of the study in point form.
Response 3:
The Conclusions section size has been reduced, and the main points of this study have been added.
Comment 4:
The authors are advised to include some qualitative and quantitative results in the conclusion part.
Response 4:
Qualitative and quantitative results have been added in the conclusions section
Reviewer 3 Report
This paper deals with the precision beekeeping topic and especially with the bee sound identification and analysis. Paper is interesting but definitely should be improved. Please find my comments below:
In the introduction Internet of Everything (IoE) is mentioned, but in the Keywords IoT (Internet of Things) is added. Is there any difference between these terms or not?
Row 31: “One of the most important sections of agriculture is the apiary” should be confirmed by some reference, as there are so many sectors in agriculture and how it is possible to find out which is the most important and which not.
Row 32: “Beehive's harmful events can be categorized into four major categories, as shown in Table 1.” – but in the table 6 categories are presented not 4 (C1-C6).
Row 41: “Many studies have shown that these events can be detected early using sound signals, images, or weight”, reference are missing, please mention some of the studies.
Authors are mentioning that the developed architecture is the low-cost, so cost estimations should be presented. And discussion what is the low-cost for the beekeepers is needed.
Row 84: “Finally, several IoT market products help beekeepers observe their beehive status” – please mention some of them.
Figure 1 has a low quality and should be improved. Spelling error in word decision. It is not intuitively what the sign with lightning mean in the cloud.
It is mentioned that end node devices are communicating with the concentrator device by the Wi-Fi protocol, why other more power efficient protocols were not considered for the communication? As well it is not clear how often measurements are taken. These details should be mentioned.
Figure 2 has spelling error: Hunidity > Humidity.
I think figure 3 is not very informative and can be removed.
Figure 4 should be improved, it is stretched and there is a free space.
Is it not clear what the Figure 5 demonstrates? It is temperature inside the hive or outside? I think there is no value of this image.
Second Figure 5 also can be removed.
Figure 6 should be improved, as the bad quality of the image.
Conclusion part:
Row 354: “This paper presents a new beehive system capable of detecting various beehive events using sound processing algorithms.” Reviewer was not able to find any prove that some algorithms are developed and it is the main shortage of this paper. System is developed and described, but there is no information how the data is analysed and which events of the bee colony can be identified.
As well the title of the paper is related to the bee sound detection, but in the paper there is no any graph and analysis of the sound provided.
Author Response
Comment 1:
In the introduction Internet of Everything (IoE) is mentioned, but in the Keywords IoT (Internet of Things) is added. Is there any difference between these terms or not?
Response 1:
The mistake has been amended. The first Introduction paragraph has been amended
Comment 2:
Row 31: "One of the most important sections of agriculture is the apiary" should be confirmed by some reference, as there are so many sectors in agriculture and how it is possible to find out which is the most important and which not.
Response 2:
Reference has been added in Row 31. And some major illnesses and harmful events have been mentioned.
Comment 3:
Row 32: "Beehive's harmful events can be categorized into four major categories, as shown in Table 1." – but in the table 6 categories are presented not 4 (C1-C6).
Response 3:
Row 32 has been corrected. There are six major categories, as explained in Table 1.
Comment 4:
Row 41: "Many studies have shown that these events can be detected early using sound signals, images, or weight", reference are missing, please mention some of the studies.
Response 4:
Studies references have been added in Row 41.
Comment 5:
Authors are mentioning that the developed architecture is the low-cost, so cost estimations should be presented. And discussion what is the low-cost for the beekeepers is needed.
Response 5:
An appropriate paragraph with cost estimations and what is low-cost for the beekeepers and another for the BeeSD product cost estimations have been added (section 4.4, last two paragraphs).
Comment 6:
Row 84: "Finally, several IoT market products help beekeepers observe their beehive status" – please mention some of them.
Response 6:
References to IoT market products have been added in Row 84.
Comment 7:
Figure 1 has a low quality and should be improved. Spelling error in word decision. It is not intuitively what the sign with lightning mean in the cloud.
Response 7:
Figure 1 quality has been improved, and the word decision is now correctly spelled. The lighting in gear represents the processing methods that detect harmful events. Explanation added in lines 109-110.
Comment 8:
It is mentioned that end node devices are communicating with the concentrator device by the Wi-Fi protocol, why other more power efficient protocols were not considered for the communication? As well it is not clear how often measurements are taken. These details should be mentioned.
Response 8:
An appropriate paragraph has been added in Ln. 114-124 to justify the authors' Wi-Fi technology selection
The measurement period acquisition is described in section 3.1, 6th paragraph. An additional paragraph for the default probing values has been added in Lines 126-131
Comment 9:
Figure 2 has spelling error: Hunidity > Humidity.
I think figure 3 is not very informative and can be removed.
Figure 4 should be improved, it is stretched and there is a free space.
Is it not clear what the Figure 5 demonstrates? It is temperature inside the hive or outside? I think there is no value of this image.
Second Figure 5 also can be removed.
Figure 6 should be improved, as the bad quality of the image.
Response 9:
Figure 2 Spelling mistake has been corrected, and Figure 3 has been removed. Figure 4 (now figure 3) has been properly formatted and merged with Figure 6 (as explained in the caption of Figure 3 a,b. Figures 4 and 5 properly show UI statistical illustrations on temperature and frequency analysis responses. Figure 6. quality has been improved. Appropriate annotation has been added to improve its significance, where the BeeSD end-node device parts are presented.
Comment 10:
Conclusion part:
Row 354: "This paper presents a new beehive system capable of detecting various beehive events using sound processing algorithms." Reviewer was not able to find any prove that some algorithms are developed and it is the main shortage of this paper. System is developed and described, but there is no information how the data is analysed and which events of the bee colony can be identified.
As well the title of the paper is related to the bee sound detection, but in the paper there is no any graph and analysis of the sound provided.
Response 10:
Appropriate analysis outputs of the sound provided and visualized have been added in Figure 5. An appropriate paragraph has been added in Lines 270-282 (section 3.2, second paragraph from the end)
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Publication of the paper is recommended.
Reviewer 3 Report
Thanks for taking into account all my comments and remarks.
