Cold Kills - starting point for discussion

trishbookworm said:

There was a virtual conference on monitoring hives using FLIR or temp sensors or microphones or video (entrance).

4th International Bee and Hive Monitoring Conference

The 4th International Bee and Hive Monitoring Conference took place, October 5-9th, 2020. The conference housed presentations from all over the world from re...

www.youtube.com

I'm familiar with the Broodminder temp sensor system, where there is one sensor in each box. Someone designed a temp sensor "net" that fit below the inner cover. That's more like what I would prefer to see in action! Lots more about the cluster size/shape/location can be revealed.

What I'd really like is a good digital scale, but I didn't sell enough honey this year to buy that.

as for papers desired, if you google some of the presenters' names in the Youtube series, you can find papers online... those will have references... if you see a favorite, pm me! I can get it.

Click to expand...

If you are looking for historical information on clusters, Owens, in the 1950's, ran several large test with various hive designs using thermocouples. He recoreded two million data points and plotted thermoclines or constant temperature lines which the showed movement of the cluster during the winter to spring season. He had no ability to acquire humidity data.

Making sense of weighting is far more difficult then supposed. The problem seesm to be related to absorption of moisture by wood. I had hive weights go up in winter - right. The systems advertised are quire expensive, focus on data recording and transmission - more like toys. I use rather cheap thermometers, I have thermocouple capability and weigh with a fish scale. Daily, maybe recorded every 12 hours, is nice for temperature and humidity. Weights are hardly needed on a weekly basis. Every minute or ten minutes seems un-useable to me unless doing a specific transient test. I asked one of the big monitor advertisers if they temeprature compensated their weighting sensor - no answer. I typically weight ten hives about 5 times a year - primarily for Fall stores going into winter.

FLIR had implementation problems in 1970 and the advertised versions still seem like toys - fun for some. But they do make some very expensive, sensitive stuff for scientific testing that are apparently quite good - no touch sensing with good calibration. and understanding of radiation parameters and test methods - impressed me in some reports. My clusters, whenever I probe or evaluate by inspection seem to stay centered in the brood chamber. This past winter they took honey from the outside first, so it seems,and saved honey over head and around the cluster as last resort until spring flow. Entirely different than past years with the improved insulation techniques and warmer internal ambients.

Realize I have been just exploring and changing on the go to develop an understanding of bee - temperature - relative humidity - brood care - honey production cycles. With a bad 3-month Summer to Fall drought, insulation on all year (not the best insulation configuration but it will be improved this coming year), I seem to have gotten my best capped frames and total weight plus all healthy hives going into winter. Part of the success resulted from bigger healthier, earlier Spring hives. I will be looking closer to the net effects this year. I also need to run some un-modified hives as a baseline - time to start taking detailed notes too.

Thanks for the offer.



I may taek you up on the