I was very excited to see the message on auditory measurements of hive sounds. Just this week I am planning to buy enough hive parts to investigate how I might integrate electronic monitoring devices into a hive in a way that would be unintrusive to the bees. I became intensly interested in bees and beekeeping this summer. Since I live in an appartment in a city that does not permit bees to be kept, I want very much to do so and will probably have to move soon. In addition to just wanting my own bees to watch, I am interested in all manner of monitoring the hive, including temperature, humidity, sound and visual monitoring. While I am not an electrical engineer, I have worked with electronics some and computers. Still, having no experience with bees, I expect lots of very interesting setbacks and successes with all of this. I think there are a lot of interesting observations that could be made with this kind of monitoring including even monitoring things like the number of bees entering and leaving the hive each day and the times of these activities. I have become especially interested in sound monitoring and perhaps other selected monitoring to detect or predict swarming and also things like the general health of the colony. This whole approach might seem a little expensive initially, and overly expensive to do commercially. And there are problems like what the effects of transmitters or digital electronics operating in the hive might be. I was thinking of simple sensors actually in the hive with any complex electronics that would emit high frequency e-m being located away from the hive, maybe on a post. In the long run, this kind of thing could become economically feasible though. For now, my main interest is in being able to monitor as much of thhe hive's activities as I can without having to open up the hive to have a look. I would be interested in the plans and information mentioned by Joe Hemmens and also any other advice or information anyone might be able to provide. Thanks! Ken Tetrick