William Morong wrote:
>
> The idea of fully instrumenting hives with general purpose industrial grade
> sensors has two problems: too much money and too many wires.
> Bill Morong

        Ok, If load cells are not quite right lets go back to the reason for
them. Determining nectar inflow and feed level. I bet we can come up
with a different sensor than weight to work this out. For instance, a
humidity sensor, airflow sensor, or sound frequency and amplitude
analysis could be used to determine when nectar is being ripened.

        Have any studies been done to determine the difference in the body temp
of a bee when returning empty, water filled, nectar filled, or pollen
bearing? If so then infrared would do. As well as track the presence of
warm blooded animals.

        How about an odor sensor to determine, nectar, pollen, excrement,
pheromones, decay, wood rot, fresh wax, medication levels, pesticide
levels, fermentation?

        Thom "Thinking I'm thinking out loud, again." Bradley