The royal jelly harvest process in Indonesian beekeeping is still done manually. This ineffectiveness intrigues the students of Universitas Brawijaya (UB) to create an automatic royal jelly harvester.

This automation is expected to help increase the speed of harvesting and the effectiveness of royal jelly production.

In addition to quantity, the quality of royal jelly harvested with this tool is also expected to be higher. With a higher harvest speed, the royal jelly will be less exposed to free air.

This innovation is the result of collaboration between students of the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Animal Husbandry, UB. They are Vira Zafarin (Electrical Eng.’18), Zuhal Azmiy Dwi Rachman (Electrical Eng.’18), Dhika Abiyoso Rahardianto (Electrical Eng.’19), and Septa Rahma Hidayat (Animal Husbandry’18).

Vira Zafarin, representing the team, explained that this automatic Royal Jelly harvester operates through several stages, starting from reading the queen cup point, suctioning royal jelly, and testing the composition.

The queen cup which is placed on the conveyor belt goes through an image processing process to read the hole points containing royal jelly. This position is then used to determine the position of the collector.

“This collector moves about three axes; x, y, and z to facilitate movement in taking royal jelly,” explained Vira.

Royal Jelly that has accumulated in the suction pipe is then flowed into a clear container to go through the composition testing stage.

The composition test includes testing the water content using the TDS Analog Meter sensor and the sugar content using the TCS230 sensor, the results of which will be displayed on the I2C LCD and smartphone application for easy monitoring.

In addition to automation, this tool also offers convenience in knowing the composition and processing of royal jelly. Beekeepers also benefit in terms of time and labor efficiency for royal jelly harvesting.

This automatic royal jelly harvester combined with Image Processing and integrated Internet of Things, is expected to be a solution to the problem of the ineffectiveness of the harvesting process and the quantity of the existing harvest.

With the guidance of Electrical Engineering lecturer Eka Maulana, ST., MT., M.Eng., the team is expected to represent UB in the upcoming 34th PIMNAS. (humasft)