Juanse wrote: > how to monitor beehives to prevent them being stolen? > or if they are stolen how to track them back? > > This company have 1000 beehives in groups of aroung 50 (ie 20 groups) > disseminated on different fields. Of course the solution has to be > unexpensive, low maintenance, robust, etc.
I wouldn't want to mess with thieves who have the cojones to steal bees! But the TV show "Scientific American Frontiers" did a story a while ago on how bees find food and how they pass the info back to the hive (see http://www.pbs.org/saf/1308/segments/1308-4.htm.) The way they tracked them was to stick a little round numbered decal on selected bees' backs, and then they could record which bees arrived at a food source located at various distances from a hive. If you marked a few bees in every hive, and a hive got stolen, you might be able to locate the stolen hive by setting up bee feed stations in suspected districts and see who shows up. But with micro-electronics improvements, maybe we'll soon see a GPS chip small enough to stick on a queen bee that can function as an apiary LoJack system. - Bill Thoen --------------------------------------------------------------------- List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message number: 9729
