Our bee club purchased a FLIR, Forward Looking Infared camera, to do just what you see in this picture. When it arrived, it was just like Christmas!! I felt like a kid who had opened a gift and just HAD to go use it! With a short charge of the battery, I loaded up the app, and that was it! Ready to use!! Technology is incredible!! These cameras used to cost over $10k!! Clearly useful for firefighters to find heat, our Hoback station was first in the county to get one. It was black and white; there was no color rendition at that time. This tiny camera hooks into an iPhone and displays on the screen.
So, off I went into the dusky twilight and looked at my hives. Hot spots means bees are still alive. The hot spots are the whitest. We will allow our members to use this tool for a week so they can get a sense of 1) if their bees are still alive 2) where the bees are located within the hive, and 3) do whatever else they think will be fun!! Of course, you knew I would take a FLIR of Rooster, right??!!
Here are my Weaver bees. The hive sits out in the field, down the fence row a bit less than a half mile from the house. The bottom darker area is where an insulation surround sits. These are my best bees and they are still alive. I have no high hopes; this has been a hard, hard winter.
This is Rooster on the hillside! He is the white spot in the dark, cold snow. The area above are pine trees, showing some heat they have retained from the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment