Hey readers! It’s been quite a while since my last update. Hope you’ve all had a great start to your 2019! For the growers out there, I hope your pollination season hasn’t been bogged too much by all the rain. We’ve been quite busy here at The Bee Corp with the launch of our digital hive grading product, Verifli. Speaking of hive grading, let’s talk frame counts.
HOW WE MEASURE COLONY SIZE
For those of you not familiar, frame count is the metric used by growers and beekeepers to measure the population size of a hive. The concept is simple enough: if seven of the frames inside a hive are covered by bees, it’s a seven-frame hive. The tricky thing about this method is accuracy. A single deep frame supposedly holds about 1,500 bees. But what if the frame is only partially covered by bees? What if they’re only covering one side of the frame? What if it’s a medium or shallow frame?
Then there are other factors like weather and timing. What if it’s peak flight time and 1/3 of the bees are out foraging? What if it’s a little chilly and the bees are clustered tightly? What if I've done hundreds of frame counts today and I can't really distinguish between a 6-frame and a 7-frame hive anymore?
As a data scientist, all these variables troubled me as Wyatt and I collected more than 500 frame counts last summer.
A BETTER MEASURE... USING SCIENCE
I hereby propose a new way to measure frame strength. Over are the days of ripping open hives, slaving over frames overflowing with bees, with the succor of smoke to yield the path! Now is the time for innovative methods to claim their rightful seat to the throne! Aside from sounding like the ramblings of a madman, hear me out. Remember, quite a while ago, my post about how hot a bee is? That, as it turns out, is around 30-38 degrees Celsius. That got me thinking: we know there are roughly 1,500 bees on an average deep frame. We know the general heat output of an individual bee. Why not calculate colony size in terms of energy output?
HOW TO MEASURE BEE ENERGY
I propose a new unit of measurement for frame strength: the Bee Power Unit (BPU). Since we know how many bees we expect in an average healthy hive, and we know the average energy output of a bee, we’re able to calculate the average energy output. However, we’re not interested in some theoretical average, we want concrete details. How many bees are in that hive?
But how does one measure energy output? Which technology do we even use? If you've been following us this past year, you may already know the answer. Everything in the universe emits Infrared radiation, which is the heat energy output that can be measured with an infrared camera. Simple enough? Well, there’s a little more to it then that... Next time, I will be exploring infrared and how we can use technology to outclass the human mind.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Check back shortly for my follow-up post on this!