The counter problem is cost versus market.  You really want robust, accurate, bi-directional counters - all bees out and all bees in throughout the day.


The firm in Europe wanted $3500 per unit  in the late 90s.  I bought two, and the plastic used in the shells cracked like an egg in two years and the units were hard to program, and the units lost the data as soon as it was downloaded into compressed data files that often did not un-compress.


For our DARPA work, we designed and built our own - aluminum shells, powder-coated.  We had a dozen.  Two were sold, one finally wore out after 10 years.  A few were never assembled.  They cost us $1800 in parts alone.    All of our units were designed for nuc colonies -  we used nucs for added experimental replication for the 'search' colonies, plus we wanted to see how small we could go with colonies of conditioned bees.


Our units were the most accurate anyone  has ever produced - we spent 6 months at DARPA's command comparing ours to every other counter.  We also designed and patented improved counting software - that's a big issue.   One only  wants to count the bees that pass all the way through in one direction or the other.


But, there's no market, especially when EPA folks say - we tried counters and they didn't work, interfer too much with bee flight.  I had one of our counters on an online, 5 frame, observation hive for 10 years and the bees did fine, didn't even hesitate, and no pile ups of bees.   Apparently, EPA they tried the cheap knock-off that start-up groups made with a few portals, and cheap parts.  Unfortunately, these groups advertised their counters as for 'research', both as a marketing ploy and to try to duck our patent rights. 


Lesson learned, bee counters are like toll booths or airports, you need sufficient numbers of passages or portals to allow the bees to exit and enter without any traffic jams.  


The most successful counters use narrow portals with an IR emitter in the top and an IR detector in the bottom.  Each portal is just large enough to let one bee at a time pass through.  And there have to be lots of portals, not a few.  Also, as I mentioned earlier, software has to be designed so that bees that balk and back out aren't counted or the guard bees on cool nights that liked to station themselves in the portals just under the IR emitters for warmth - a heated sentry booth.  Balking bees and guard bees sitting all night under the emitters really mess up counts.


Cheap counter units typically had 3-5 portals.  The European one for full size hives had 32, as I remember.  Ours for 5 frame colonies had 14-16, I'm not exactly sure and don't have time to dig one out of storage unit at the moment.  


Finally, we and others have experimented with capacitance-based counters.  A group in Pittsburgh patented a capacitance bee counter - but I can't seem to find them anymore.  Capacitance counters (like the button on US elevators) don't require portals, just a touch pad base plate.  Problem is accuracy, especially since any insect walking on the plate may trigger a count.  We  had a real problem with debris  and dirt affecting detection.  We were able to see a difference in the detected signal for queen versus drone versus workers.  Remember, a capacitance counter is trying to detect the foot steps of insects, each with six tiny feet.


I've talked with Charles about counters.  He wants a lot of them.  As per EPA - they don't seem to get the idea that one of the most important metrics from a pollination protection perspective is not how heavy a colony is or how  many bees are on a frame but rather how many bee flights per day, at the time of day that blossoms are open, are occurring.    That's the best metric of colony health with respect to the actual pollination activity that is provided, and a counter will detect with far more accuracy than any bee traps when a pesticide exposure incident occurs, how severe was the incident, and how fast did the colony recover, if at all?


If I were independently wealthy, I'd have my electronics circuit guy re-design or 5 frame counters to fit 8 and 10 frame hives, and I'd get the molds and presses made to produce the portal arrays (which one know  could probably 3D print) and have the machined shops gear up to produce aluminum shells to protect everything from the elements.  But no one other than Charles is interested counters at the moment and I don't have big money like DARPA money at the moment, so I'm focused on consultation  work and projects like our acoustic app, where the IP is in the software, not the hardware.


Sorry, Charlie  -   unless you have a rich patron, I don't think you can afford the scale-up and manufacture of the number of high quality counters that you want.
The good news, we still have the circuit diagrams, specs, software - it's not a start from scratch but rather a bit of re-design and manufacture of counters for full size hives.








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