🛰️ Satellite Data for Nectar Flow Forecasting

About this simulation

Modern precision-beekeeping tools pull daily NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) rasters from satellites such as Sentinel-2 to track how green and floriferous the land around an apiary is, week by week. This simulation reproduces that workflow on a synthetic 22×22 patch landscape: each patch has its own simulated bloom curve, and scrubbing the day-of-year slider replays a full season of "satellite" readings across the terrain.

How it works

• Terrain colour — each tile is shaded from bare-soil brown through green to a bright yellow-green flush as its simulated NDVI rises toward its patch-specific bloom peak.
• Bloom markers — small flower stalks appear on any patch whose NDVI crosses the bloom threshold, mimicking how analysts flag "in bloom" cells.
• Forage ring — the translucent ring around the hive marks the colony's foraging radius; only patches inside it feed the nectar-flow estimate.
• Weather alerts — storm days are drawn from a probability you set; on a storm day rain overlays the scene and the forecast is discounted, just as real flow forecasts drop sharply after a washout.
• Bloom calendar — the strip above the hive plots the next 30 days of forecast nectar flow with red flags on predicted storm days.

Controls

• Day of year — scrubs through the simulated satellite time series.
• Storm probability — how often washout days occur across the season.
• Forage radius — the colony's effective foraging distance used in the flow estimate.
• Bloom NDVI threshold — the vegetation-index cutoff used to classify a patch as "in bloom".
• ▶ Play timelapse — auto-advances the day slider so you can watch a season unfold.

Did you know?

Real precision-apiculture services combine NDVI time series with historic weather and crop-bloom phenology models to text beekeepers a few days before a major flow starts — giving them time to move colonies or add supers before the nectar arrives.