Background Post Numero Uno

          Hello everyone, this in this post I will be discussing some background information on my project. Although I've already discussed some of these details in other posts, I think it would be good to have my entire experimental setup laid out in one post. So, here goes.
          The basic goal of my experiment is to apply two types of miticides (thymol and Apivar) to four hives and observe their effects on honey bee colony homeostasis using CO2, temperature and humidity, and weight sensors. An additional two hives are attached to sensors but will receive no treatment at all (they are our control group). I will insert an image of our work-site down below. This lot contains ten hives, four of which we are not using (they are involved in other experiments). All of the sensors are attached to data loggers which have been put inside lock-boxes for protection from the elements and the bees. I have circled one of the lock-boxes in red in the picture below.

        The orange wires connect the CO2 sensors to the data loggers, and the areas underneath the hives covered in blue tarp are the scales ("weight sensors"), which also connected to the data loggers. The unpainted wooden areas below the hive bodies (which are painted white) contain the bottom boards (which hold the sticky-boards). The temperature and humidity sensors are called iButtons. They are wireless and will have to be taken out in order to have their data read. I will attach an image of an iButton below.

An iButton temperature and humidity sensor.

     Since the iButtons are so small, we placed two in each hive (one at the bottom of frame 4 and one at the top of frame 4). We also put them in small cages so that the bees wouldn't cover the sensors in wax or propolis. Although I don't have an actual image of our sensors' placement within the hive, I will demonstrate their position by using a schematic of a frame.

         The area highlighted in blue is where we placed our nondispersive infrared carbon dioxide sensor. It is nestled between the comb and the top bar of the frame. We decided to place our CO2 sensors here because although CO2 levels in a beehive can exceed 5000 parts per million (and our sensors are only sensitive to CO2 levels below 5000 parts per million), CO2 is heavier than other gasses and usually collects in the bottom hives. For reference, the average concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere today is 400 parts per million.
          The areas highlighted in green and red are where we placed our iButtons (the temperature/humidity sensors). To secure them, we attached their cages to wires and stapled them to the top and bottom of each frame. In addition, we pressed them into the comb so that they wouldn't disturb airflow within the hive as much as they would if they were in between the frames.
         And that's all for this post! My next background post will be about the type of data we will obtain from our sensors and what the data will tell us about the hives. Expect some more update posts soon.  







       IButton EEPROM 256-bit (1). Digital image. Rapidonline.com. Rapid Electronics, n.d. Web. <http://www.rapidonline.com/ibutton>. 

      Cushman, David A. Dummy Frame. Digital image. Dave-cushman.net. David A. Cushman, n.d. Web. <http://www.dave-cushman.net
             /bee/dummyframe.html>.