I'm holding off until I see some independent data regarding the claims of: a) 'no effect' on the colony, but b) it 'kills' mites. There are lots of sounds in a beehive. We've been working with deciphering hive sounds for more than 10 years and we hope to finally bring our technology to market in 2017. Bees produce sounds from below 200 HZ to far into the true ultra-sound range (well above 20,000 HZ).
I agree with Randy, us old folks usually can't hear the higher audible frequencies of 12k-20k Hz, but I could hear them as a kid and all through college - I used to build and sell high-end audio systems, and I studied insect sounds as part of my Ph.D. research.
Most audio (stereo, home theater) systems aim to reach at least 12 kHZ, even the cheapest ones. Even some of us old timers can usually still hear up to 12-15 kHz. The human voice produces sounds up to 14 kHZ.
Young ears that can still hear the 15-20 kHZ frequencies may notice the difference btw a good and a cheap sound system due to the audio fall-off at the higher frequencies that is often typical of low end recorders, many audio compression programs, and low cost speakers. But then again, youngsters are often more interested in feeling bass than hearing the full sound spectrum in music, so only the true audiophile is likely to care.
As per bees and mites, I do know that colony sounds reflect colony status relative to pests (such as specific sounds produced when mites are present), diseases, and exposure to pesticides. Whether bees use these sounds as a form of communication within the hive is still an open question. If they do communicate via sound, then we may want to be careful about introducing noise pollution into the hive at 90 db.
For humans, OSHA safeguards to protect human hearing usually kick in at no more than 8 hrs at 90 decibels of noise exposure. Louder than that and the ear protection equipment needs to be used. Sure would hate to have to fit every bee with ear plugs - would first have to find the 'ears' - antenna caps and fuzzy feet covers?
After ten years, my team and our audio algorithms can decipher many colony sounds - that are far more diverse and complex than the examples of the experienced beekeeper who can 'hear' a queenless colony, Eddie Woods who could hear colonies about to swarm, or Arnia's scale hives plus a couple of new companies who use overall colony noise to judge colony vigor). I wouldn't be surprised if the bees use sound to communicate colony status.
I don't know that mites can 'hear' or whether they can perceive vibrational frequencies in that range. There's some evidence that the blind tracheal mites may sense the proximity of potential new hosts by sensing movement or vibration - tactile clues.
After the Flow Hive, I get a bit uneasy when crowd-sourcing is invoked to fund an idea based on undocumented evidence of efficacy. Show me some data, please.
Next summer, I'll probably try this, it's easy enough to set up an frequency generator, hook it to a tweeter. We're going to do some more work with queen sounds, so this is an easy add-on for us, but I've 8 inches of new snow at the moment and no brood in the colonies. This spring, I'm not ordering their device, I'll use what I already have, just need to dig ours out.
I do anticipate some technical issues concerning verification of their claim of killing mites. I'll have to discuss an experimental design with my research partner, I doubt we'll see mites running away from the noise.
J.J. Bromenshenk
Bee Alert
Missoula, Mt
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