Modelling daily weight variation in honey bee hives
Fig 2
Schematic representation of the daily cycle of bee activities relevant to modeling colony weight, where time flows in a clockwise direction (blue line).
The main time-dependent elements we model are the number of forager bees N(t) and the food F(t) (in green) inside the hive. The foragers are represented as active bees that depart the hive (black arrow) and return to it (red arrow) with food (in orange). The ratio of forager bees inside the hive at a particular time is represented by x(t), which is constant before and after the dynamics of forager bees because the Nmax foragers are all inside the hive. The static weight W0 is composed of the hive structure and bees that do not leave the hive.