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  • Author Author: james.flynn
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What is with that Bee Avatar you use?

james.flynn

That is an good question, I am a Bee Keeper so I though it appropriate to use a "busy bee" as my avatar.  I started with 2 hives and grew it to 5 before this last winter when the weather managed to kill them all here in NC.  Now I'm back to starting with 1 hive and hopefully the weather will cooperate.  I really can't complain, I was able to keep the last ones going for 3 years.  I suspect they would have been find over this past winter but the weather got warm, I suspect the bee's all though it was time to get busy, then the weather got cold again with a week of <30 degrees.  I guess that is the circle or life.  And what does that have to do with electronics?  You would be surprised how electronics permeates everything we do, just check out this article... http://design.avnet.com/axiom/the-internet-of-bees/

  • in reply to beacon_dave

    They are pretty amazing creatures.  When they leave the hive, and find a food source, they will come back and communicate with the other bees exactly how far to go, which direction to go in, what way the find is blowing, and how high you must go to get to it.  Then they will eat only enough to get them to the food source where they must eat so they have the energy to come back... talk about trusting your directions.  But to answer your question, if you move the hive after they have left, they will get lost when coming back. If it is only a few cm or maybe a kilometer or so, they can find the hive because of the way it smells. But if you move it more than a few kilometers away, they will not be able to find it.  It goes back to the instructions they are given on where the food source is located, they use those same directions to come back.  So they can account for changes in the sun (which they supposedly use to navigate and windage, but not the movement of the hive itself).

  • I seem to recall that a lot of research using electronics has gone into figuring out how bees instinctively know the answer behind the mathematical 'travelling salesman problem', in as much  that they appear to be able to take the near optimal route between food sources in order to minimalise travel time/distance.

     

    Is it true that you can move an active bee hive a few cms or a few kilometres and they will be able to locate it, but it confuses them if you move it a few metres ?