Due to human activities, the global climate environment is gradually deteriorating (Reed, Wehner, & Zarzycki, 2022), resulting in extreme weather that significantly impacts various biological communities (Hoegh-Guldberg, et al., 2019). As one of the world's most important pollinators (Aristizábal, et al., 2025), around 90 % of crucial crops globally depend on bee pollination services. However, in recent years, a large number of bee colony collapses have been observed worldwide (Moldoveanu, Maggioni, & Dani, 2024), with extreme weather being a major contributing factor (Czekońska, Łopuch, & Miścicki, 2023). Given the critical role of pollinating insects in maintaining ecosystems and agricultural production, preserving bee populations under extreme weather conditions is imperative.

Temperature is a critical determinant of animal health, as maintaining thermal comfort minimizes energy expenditure and supports survival in diverse environments (Gove et al., 2023, Royer et al., 2023, Turhan and Akkurt, 2019, Yoshizawa et al., 2022). Variations in heat production and dissipation capacities result in species-specific thermal comfort zones (Z. Wang, et al., 2018). For instance, humans typically thrive between 20–26 ℃, a range that benefits work efficiency, sleep quality, and overall well-being (Buonocore et al., 2020, Mujan et al., 2019). As highly eusocial organisms, bees exhibit a unique mechanism for colony-level thermoregulation.

Although bees are considered ectothermic animals (Stabentheiner & Kovac, 2023), they exhibit temperature self-regulation characteristics when functioning as a group (Stabentheiner, Kovac, Mandl, & Käfer, 2021). Through social cooperation among individuals, bee colonies regulate the overall hive temperature to maintain homeostasis. Due to the requirements of brood rearing, the core temperature of bee colonies is controlled between 33–36 ℃ (Tautz, Maier, Groh, Rössler, & Brockmann, 2003). When the external environment changes, bees cool or heat the hive to maintain temperature stability through behaviors such as fanning, collecting water, vibrating, or clustering (Ostwald, Smith, & Seeley, 2016). This temperature regulation can be viewed as the hive organism's stress response to external temperature stimuli (Mitchell, 2023), resulting in additional energy consumption and reduced production efficiency (Cook, Blackler, McGree, & Hauxwell, 2021). Consequently, relying solely on the bees' inherent thermoregulatory mechanisms is insufficient to safeguard colonies under extreme weather conditions. Artificial interventions, such as water supplementation or heating, can mitigate colony losses due to temperature imbalances (Doeke et al., 2015, Sibaja Leyton et al., 2025). However, determining when to initiate or cease these interventions remains a challenge for beekeepers. Therefore, evaluating hive temperature under actual conditions will assist in resolving environmental management challenges within bee colonies.

In recent years, the advancement of automated monitoring equipment has laid a foundation for long-term assessment of bee colony conditions (Hong, et al., 2020). Installed inside beehives, temperature, humidity, weight, photoelectric, and optical sensors can continuously monitor internal environmental changes (Zaman & Dorin, 2023). Currently, several methods for detecting anomalies in bee colonies based on monitoring equipment have been proposed. Examples include health monitoring via hive weight and environmental data (Degenfellner & Templ, 2024), queen‑loss detection using audio frequencies (Chen et al., 2024, Soares et al., 2022), Varroa‑mite identification through machine vision (Duma, et al., 2024), and cluster‑state prediction from hive temperature (Zacepins, Kviesis, Stalidzans, Liepniece, & Meitalovs, 2016). Consequently, long‑term, IoT‑enabled surveillance of colony metrics permits early warning of anomalous hive conditions, thereby facilitating risk management under environmental stress (Kady, et al., 2021). While internal hive temperature changes are closely related to colony development, there has been limited research on assessing or controlling hive temperature comfort. Previous studies have reported some hive temperature control devices (Altun, 2012) and models for predicting colony state based on hive temperature (Cejrowski and Szymański, 2022, Li et al., 2022), but we still know nothing about the thermal comfort range for bee colonies. Such a knowledge gap not only limits our understanding of the thermal dynamics within hives but also impedes the development of effective hive environmental management strategies.

Continuously measuring changes in biological health indicators under environmental parameters is a crucial method for assessing the environmental comfort of biological habitats (Daemei et al., 2019, Mahdizadeh Gharakhanlou et al., 2025). Physiological indicators related to environmental comfort typically include body surface temperature (McCafferty, Gallon, & Nord, 2015), food intake (Marchant-Forde, Marlin, & Marchant, 2004), heart rate (Broom, 1993), and body weight (Fournel, Rousseau, & Laberge, 2017). Based on changes in environmental parameters and physiological state indicators, the comfort range of breeding environments can be delineated, which in turn helps to construct evaluation models and environmental control algorithms for breeding environment comfort (L. Wang, Zhang, Li, Xia, & Ma, 2021). The structure of beehives is similar to that of human or other livestock buildings (Jarimi, Tapia-Brito, & Riffat, 2020), both being semi-enclosed environments. Linking hive temperature with hive health status indicators could potentially aid in assessing the comfort of the hive environment.

Due to the current lack of reliable methods to assess hive temperature comfort, mitigating the adverse impacts of climate change on bee populations remains challenging. This study pioneers an innovative approach by employing an automated, long-term monitoring system to capture detailed hive temperature data alongside key indicators of bee colony health. By elucidating the complex relationship between hive thermal conditions and bee colony health, the research provides valuable insights into microclimatic influences on bee populations while proposing novel evaluation methods and identifying optimal temperature ranges. Based on the optimal temperature ranges for bee colonies, a hive temperature evaluation model was developed to facilitate real-time monitoring and automated evaluation of colony thermal conditions. These findings lay a solid foundation for hive temperature regulation strategies, thereby advancing precision beekeeping and supporting adaptive management practices in the context of global climate change.