I think it this kind of technology will be pretty slow in catching on in
the industry.
It may be useful in large operations for inventory tracking, but the cost
of readers and software will prohibit use in most operations till they come
down a bit.

It unfortunately does little to discourage vandalism and theft.  The hive
will be long gone before the thief ever knows of this protection, and will
only be detected if he tries to sell to a beekeeper who happens to have a
device to read it.  And if the reader is cheap enough for even us hobbyists
to protect ourselves from stolen goods, it also cheap enough for the thief
so he either can remove the devices, or use the reader to identify hives
not protected by the device.  (And I wouldn't count on law enforcement
agencies to have a reader, or for bee inspectors to have one.  Most
programs that are still fortunate enough to exist are only doing so by a
narrow margin)

Hopefully they won't fall into the same trap as pet ID chips.  There are
several different types of chips which require different readers, and
several different locations on the animal to put them in.    Often in one
area one type is common (because the local shelter has a reader for the
particular type, etc.), but loose your dog in another location and the
shelter there may have no clue the animal is yours even if it has a
chip.  (Some shelters do tattoos to identify the original shelter to get
around this.)

Never the less it would be an interesting inventory tracking system.  Scan
supers as they are placed on hives, and scan and record weight when they
return full of honey.  If they can tie it into a hand held computer with
voice recognition, I might be able to keep a useful set of notes one
day.  For now though I'm considering a good branding iron, and possibly
even branding the top bars, bottom boards, tops, etc.

-Tim

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