Five people responded to my last posting so this message is addressed
primarily to them; they are Tim Eisele, William Morong, Jerry Bromenshenk,
Olda Vancata and Donald Aitken.

You must all have realised by now that as a geriatric I am instinctively
against computers and prejudiced in favour of a replacement for the
apidictor which was designed by my friend and colleague, Eddie Woods.  You
can therefore depend on me to put forward every possible objection to your
plans and I hope this will lead you to avoid any unforseen pitfalls.

Let me take you by the hand on a visit to your apiary in the middle of the
swarming season.
The first question is to ask, "Is it raining?". Decide whether it is safe to
open your laptop out of doors.
Next, "Is the sun going to shine on the screen so I cannot see the display?"
If the answers are OK, place the laptop on the hive roof, plug in the
microphone, switch on and press whatever keys have to be pressed. (If you
wear gloves, have a dress rehearsal now, before you bother to design
anything)

Presumably what you hope to see on the screen is a spectrum analysis of
amplitude against frequency.
Measure the amplitude over the frequency band 225-285Hz.  Does it peak above
the surrounding frequencies? If there is a sharp spike at 250Hz, that is
flight noise.  On the apidictor this got in the way and measurements were
supposed to be made in the evening.  If it does not confuse you, this is a
bonus because you will be able to operate during the day.

Look at that part of the spectrum above 3,000 Hz and thump the hive. You
will see a burst of signal.  If it starts and finishes very suddenly and
lasts about half a second. no swarm is planned so you can pick up the
laptop, bee box, hive tool and smoker and move on to the next hive..  If the
hiss is more 'rounded' and drawn out, put the laptop to one side, open up
the hive, look for queen cells and take your normal swarm control action.

The 1964 apidictor was about a quarter of the size of today's laptop
computer.  Using active filters and an audio chip, today's equivalent could
be built into the microphone or headphone lead.  Plenty of people are
already designing them for their own use but sooner or later, something will
emerge on the commercial market.  Something that is designed for a specific
purpose usually does its job better than something that is adapted from
another application.

Without seeing an actual screen display I cannot really judge but, certainly
as far as the loyalty hiss is concerned,  I would prefer to use my ears
rather than my eyes for judging its characteristics. (Nobody is really sure
but I think the warble is actually the aggregate noise from hundreds of
bees, each producing its own individual frequency between 225 and 285Hz.)

If I think of anything else relevant, I'll post it; meanwhile, Have fun!
Rex.