> ... There are single chip devices out there today
> that can perform a complete spectral analysis.
> I also agree that future beekeeping will include
> remote sensing devices.

I had a chance to spend some time with Jerry B. from Missoula while we were at
the American Honey Producers Association meeting in San Diego.

Among many other amazing things, he tells me that his neural network system have
been able to predict swarms after watching bee comings and goings at the hive
entrances for some time -- even though the networks had never 'experienced' a
swarm before.

Apparently, they predicted accurately the number of bees that would leave at a
specific future time, but, due to lack of experience, did not know that the bees
would not come back!

Jerry was not able to cover all his work in much depth in the time allotted for
his talk, due to a very full meeting agenda, but what time he was allowed, he
filled with a lot of exiting ideas and facts from his research.

In the past few years, the cost of remote real time measurement has plummeted
and Jerry measures =everything=.  These measurement have resulted in some rather
amazing observations and the ability to do experiments remotely.

If I understood him correctly, he could easily set up something so that the
neural networks could  simulate an Apidictor or listen to sounds through filters
and learn to interpret them.  Of course time and funding are constraints to
following this up.

Maybe Jerry will find a few moments to report to the list some of the things he
was able to bring to San Diego.  I hope so.

allen