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Date: | Thu, 17 Mar 2011 22:01:51 -0400 |
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RFID tags have rather limited read ranges - inches to feet, sometimes a few
yards. Some newer technologies/tags may be usable at a few hundred yards.
No passive rfid is likely to be trackable for miles. Active tags have
longer ranges, but require power sources, far too big for bees to carry. We
have small, active tags that can mark a beehive or a larger animal like a
bear, and that can be picked up/read from a mile or two.
Theoretically, you could tag bees at point of origin, set up readers at the
supposed end of the migration route, scan for bees with tags - but that's
likely to be really iffy. I have no idea how you'd be able to make any
guesses as to where bees are going to go - or where they are coming from.
Drone aggregation areas have been identified using radar - but that simply
looks for groups of bees in areas where you suspect the drones might go -
the detection limits are usually a few miles.
We've used lasers to detect bees at distances of a mile, and if you've a
clear line of sight, you should be able to see bees at much greater
distances. The laser we used to 'see' bees at a mile are actually designed to look
at atmospheric chemistry at 30 miles up. We had to detune this instrument
to avoid frying bees on the wing at a distance of a mile.
Looking at atmospheric chemistry 30 miles up vertically has the advantage
of unimpeded line of sight. You're unlikely in hilly or forested areas to
be able to follow bees for any distance even remotely close to 30 miles.
If you've really deep financial pockets, you might mount a laser unit under
a helicopter and follow migrating bees. My first introduction to LIDAR
(lasers) was tracking plumes from coal-fired power plant smokestacks, using
a LIDAR in the belly of a fixed wing aircraft. One of the first LIDARs
that we used to track bees was originally designed to spot schools of fish in
lakes from an airplane. The LIDAR was mounted on the floor of the plane,
with a hole in the fuselage so that the laser could scan the water.
Jerry
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