Sometimes it has to be said: People miss the obvious The obvious being missed this time seems to me: It is very expensive to develop such a system, not to build it With Allen's wish list being as "small" as it is, has anybody asked himself how long will it take of research (and with how many hives), under how many different conditions, and so long, and whatever else, until one knows how to correlate all the data gathered (let's recall: temperature, sound, bee count, weight) to get meaningful answers satisfying the wish list? There lies the expense of development. It will have to be done in collaboration with the beekeepers (at least some beekeepers), and I don’t believe it will work on first try, quite the opposite. As I see it, the problem, the financial side of it, is not the putting together of all the existing bits and pieces, but the correlation of all the data into a meaningful whole. Some questions do come to mind: How will that system work in hot climates with no winter to speak of? Who will test it there? Who will test at all? Could beekeeper’s associations be of help? What about university research funding? Deodato Wirz Vieira ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com