Setting up a Lora gateway and sensor connection

Support
1

I am looking to setup a lora gateway to connect sensors to IOT. To do this I am looking at purchasing the following.

Laird Sentrius
Pycom case
Pycom LoPy4
Pycom Lora Sigfox Antenna Kit
Pycom expansion board

I want to take measurements from beehives (4) that are approximately 2 meters apart.
I was thinking that I will need a Pycom case, LoPy4, Pycome expansion board and Pycom Lora Sigfox Antennas for each hive. Interested to know if I could have wires coming from each hive to a central Lopy4. I suspect the length of the wires would compromise the signal from the sensors (temp and humidity*3, weight, sound) .

I will also need to power the LoPy4, The Pycom expansion board mentions that it has input for a Lipo charger. I plan to use a solar panel to power the setup.

Questions:

  1. Can you please advise if it is OK to connect the Pycom expansion board directly to a solar panel to charge a lipo battery.
  2. If it is not possible to connect the solar panel directly to the pycom expansion board to charge the lipo battery I presume I would need to get something like the solar lipo charger which I could connect to a solar panel and lipo battery directly.
  3. The hives are outside so I would like to have the electronics contained in the Pycom case. Could you please advise which of the Lipo batteries will fit in the case and would it be possible to fit the solar lipo charger in the case as well if it is required.
  4. Can you provide an estimate for how long the Lipo battery will be able to run the LoPy without recharging. I am trying to get a sense of how many shady days it will be able to maintain operation of the system.
  5. In regards to solar panels to charge batteries I was thinking I could either put a small one on the top of each hive or have a larger panel with wires going to the 4 hives. Having each hive working as a contained unit does offer some advantages when checking hives. If the cost is similar to having wires between hives I would go self contained. If there is cost saving having a single power source I would look to go that way. Could you please advise regarding solar panel products that would fit with the proposed configuration or advise alternative superior options.

You have probably already figured I am new to this, thank you for your help.

John