Well, we made the 2500 mile journey.  Good news, all 21 colonies in the
electronic "condos" survived the trip in good shape.  Bad news, 5 of the
17 "spare" nucs lost a goodly number of bees, presumably as a result of
shipping excessive amounts of water during a flash storm in Ohio.  Either
that, or the top ventilation wasn't sufficient in the near 100% relative
humidity.
 
Our nucs in our condos (boxes that protect the electronics) had fans, a
drip watering system, and top and bottom screens.  They stayed 2 degrees
(C) warmer during cool weather and 2 degrees cooler in hot weather than
the nucs that were not in boxes, so the outer box really helped to buffer
the colonies against rain, heat, and cold.
 
A spritz of water from the electric pump (the switch was mounted under
the dash) dropped hive temperatures by several degrees. We placed
temperature probes in some of the hives and had the digital readouts
mounted in the cab of the truck so that we could track colony core
temperatures while driving.  After a few second spray, core temperature
would drop 3-6 degrees, then rise to about 2 degrees of the initial
temperature.  More importantly, the evaporative cooling effect lasted for
a fair period of time (30 minutes to an hour or more).
 
It took some time to set up the colonies.  At this point in time, we have
deployed sets of 7 colonies at three locations.  One site is going into
its third week with full electronics, one is going into its second week
with the primary electronics, and the third should go on-line next week.
 
Having continuous flight activity data from 7 colonies at a site, plus
core temperatures, relative humidity, weight changes (on 3 units), pollen
collection by time of time (clock driven traps), and full weather data is
a real thrill.
 
In general, colony activity patterns among each set of 7 units is more
closely matched than we might expected.  There are "outlier" colonies
that sometimes do things none of the others do.
 
Similarly, different sites have somewhat different activity patterns.
 
The peaks activity levels for strong colonies are higher than for weak
colonies.  Some colonies get up later and some stop sooner (despite all
facing in the same direction).
 
2 small puffs of smoke, a 2 minute delay, and 2 additional puffs of smoke
at the hive entrance (no other disturbance, we didn't open the hives) at
@ 2 in the afternoon resulted in an immediate drop in total activity,
fewer exiting bees.  The remarkable thing was that these colonies
displayed a depression of flight activity for the rest of the day.
 
Fun!
 
Cheers
 
Jerry Bromenshenk
The University of Montana
 
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