Thermal Imaging

[Mike a]

Fascinating! Thank you - looking forward to more.

But I don't know how much one can trust at its face value what one 'sees'.

With an air temperature of about +10, all the roof temperatures appear consistently MUCH lower, barely above freezing!
Is that perhaps a reflection of the sky rather than a real temperature?

Thermal imagining is an art and a science which I don't fully understand, but you are right. The temperatures you see on the scale do not reflect the true value of heat within or on the hive for various reasons. You are also spot on about the roof of the hive it is showing a reflection of the sky. If I had taken the picture from a different angle it would of shown the correct temperature which would of been slightly lower than the ground air temperatures. Most of my wooden hives have a layer of insulation built into the roof so if I see any hot spots I will be worried.

I would love to see what these heater nurse bees, covering queen cells, look like with your termal camera

I hope I will be able to take a few pictures next year as I want to look for some of the following:
Heater bees in action. What temperature are they generating.
Does the queen look any different, for instance does she produce the same amount of heat as other bees or does she rely on those around her to keep her warm.
Frames of eggs, brood and sealed brood. Are they all roughly the same temperatures or do they need to be kept warmer.
Newly emerging bees, do they heat themselves straight away.
Drones - do they contribute to the heat in a hive.
Plus many more...

Some of these may seem silly questions to some bee keepers reading this but I hope to find out for myself instead of just accepting what others have written in their books. My only concern is the quality of the pictures, our camera doesn't have a quick so called shutter speed and my bees aren't exactly calm on the frames so I suspect most of my pictures could well look burred.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Absolutely wonderful.
What a great toy........dear santa.............

 

[Mike a]

Latest batch of pictures.

In case you are wondering why there is two small hot spots this is the super with two small knots which were glued in place to stop them moving.

Paynes poly nuc with eke

Polish poly nuc, small colony. Lower cross hair over the entrance

Still waiting for a very cold evening to be able to take better pictures. Ideally I would like the air temps to be below freezing or there abouts.

 

[BeeJayBee]

It's interesting to see how this works, even with the poly hives.

Did you know where the bees were in each hive before you took the pictures?

 

[Mike a]

It's interesting to see how this works, even with the poly hives.

Did you know where the bees were in each hive before you took the pictures?

Up until the other night the weather has been so mild here I had some doubts if they were even clustering in to a tight ball over night or just generally sitting under the large lumps of fondant they all have. The only way to be sure is to take two pictures per hive each time (front and side) and compare them over time and take into account the size of each colony. May be in a few weeks time and a lot more pictures I will be able to see they have moved across the frames as they open and consume their sealed stores.

 

[Mike a]

Latest Batch

Here is another batch of thermal images.
The first batch belong to a friend, the rest are mine.

A Friend's Hives

My Hives

Two bees decided to pop out and walk around on the front of the poly nuc

 

[Headnavigator]

Fascinating, Mike. I went over mine with a laser thermometer yesterday and had a comparable result, though nothing like so interesting as your visual image. It's amazingly reassuring to be able to see that they are warm, I especially like your shots where the cluster location is clearly visible. More pics as the winter progresses, please?

 

[Russel]

Out of interest, do you think you'd get the same, or similar, resulting image using an IR 720 filter?

IIRC isn't the 720 normally used on "conventional" cameras to see that part of the spectrum not visible to the naked eye?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Great pictures,thanks.
Much more satisfying than my ear flattened to a box or my stethoscope.
Interesting how much more heat loss there is in the hand holds of those MB hives.As you would expect I suppose.