The Woods Apidictor

[oliver90owner]

Yep, welcome!

Looks to me like an old Avo meter box with a compartment added.

It was fully transistorised then! Right state of the art in those days - I remember the middle/late fifties pocket transistor radios - arghh!

I'm afraid that after 50 years of shooting, driving early ag tractors and also D-8 Cats, as well as working in LOUD environments, my hearing is a little 'frayed at the edges' (much above 10kHz), so I would enjoy a modern computer based spectrum analyser that could help to simplify inspections into my old age.

I note there is a paper on google by ferrari? (not the car maker) which sems to indicate recent development in this area. Have not subscribed to read it though.

Where are you located; would love to experience one. Please pm me if you live any where near Lincolnshire!

Regards, RAB

 

[Tempus Fugit]

Hi
The internals are shown below, the case is not as big as an avo case, but just big enough to store the stethoscope earphones and mic, which was housed in a tap adaptor like a washing machine hose which would fit a hole drilled in the brood box and sealed with a bath plug when not being used (bit of thin polythene sheet pinned over the inside of the hole to stop it being an exit or being bunged up with propolus)
The only bit not 'solid state' was a green fluorescent 'magic eye' tube which is behind the slot on the top panel and needed a high voltage supply derived from a little oscillator circuit.

Unfortunatley I'm not hear you (Isle of Man) and don't keep bees myself so can't help with a demo, but there must be a few about. I used to get 'press-ganged' into helping dad with the bees, moving hives, winding the extractor etc. but I reacted badly to stings so tried to keep away from them, but with a fanatic for a dad you couldn't help know all about them !.
On the tape dad says the apidictors were expected to be on the market at about £25 which was still quite expensive, I suppose about the price of a fridge (?) in those days. I know dad and another friend bought it between them to start with.

Hope you have got good weather for your bees, there's plenty of dandelions out here for starters, plenty of cheery but the apple blossom isn't out yet !

Glad you find the info of interest

TF

 

[Onge]

Blimey is that the original battery. Haven't seen one like that for years

Looks great I would love to try one.

 

[victor meldrew]

Absolutely fascinating !!

The sound quality of the speakers has suffered over time on a reel to reel tape but top marks to our new subscriber for sharing it with us .It answers the question I posed on the following Link

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2735

John Wilkinson

 

[Repwoc]

Fascinating. More info on Woods' work in this link:

Listen to the Bees

 

[oliver90owner]

Thanx for that Repwoc. Very interesting and well described/explained for the non-physicists, too. I will return and print it out - so much easier to digest as a hard copy.

Regards, RAB

 

[Adam]

I've got some of the Eddy Woods recordings, on DVD (but only sound), but unfortunately I'm not the copyright owner. To be honest, all I hear is the sounds of lots of bees humming, but the arguments put forward seem reasonable, and with the modern electronics the idea you could get a text message to say this colony is preparing to swarm would seem to me to be a fantastic idea!

All you'd need to do is record a bit, run a fast fourier transform, (at night, so it's not affected by foragers returning), assess the relative amplitude against fruqency and then send a text message if it was in limits. Sounds simple, but I'm too busy to give it a go.

Adam

 

[Poly Hive]

A competent quick inspection 10 days earlier would have given you the same info albeit visually, not by text... (good god damn texts) and you would have A/S'd the hive by the time you got the text and got there to see the swarm on the highest tree in the neighbour hood.



PH

 

[victor meldrew]

Yep, welcome!
I note there is a paper on google by ferrari? (not the car maker) which sems to indicate recent development in this area. Have not subscribed to read it though.
Regards, RAB

Do you mean Ferranti ?? I know THEY don't make cars .

John W.

 

[Adam]

A competent quick inspection 10 days earlier would have given you the same info albeit visually, not by text... (good god damn texts) and you would have A/S'd the hive by the time you got the text and got there to see the swarm on the highest tree in the neighbour hood.

PH

Depends, I suspect many beekeepers don't inspect regularly enough, and it would be interesting if the theory was true, if it would allow a commercial beekeeper to run more hives. I understand of course, they have different pressures/methods with dealing with swarming.

Adam