Brood Box Cam inquiry....

[KD4MOJ]

Ok... as I have been adding cameras around the property... the thought of a brood box real time video cam came to mind.. specifically a KTBH so you can see the ladies draw comb out.

Most of the video cameras I've been using have a minimum foot distance (usually around 3 feet) so those won't do. Been searching the pinhole cameras and they look like the might do the job.

Has anyone around here done this before? I've seen some on-line but most have been entrance type cams or "snapshots" and not real time video.


...DOUG
KD4MOJ

[BlueBee]

Sounds interesting.  No I haven't done anything like this.  Could you adopt a macro lens to a video cam somehow to decrease the focal length?  What about illumination? 

[KD4MOJ]

Haven't seen any with macro lenses yet... at least not the kind of camera that I have been exposed too thus far. I'm sure that they are out there.

Plan on illuminating with IR LED's... got to experiment on how many that I will need to adequately light her up... shouldn't be too hard to figure that one out.

...DOUG
KD4MOJ

[BlueBee]

How about illuminating with regular red LEDs instead of dropping down to the IR spectrum?  Most literature claims bees can't see red light.  My bees seem pretty oblivious to red light generated by my red LED based flashlights.

Again, I'm not a video cam person, but I wonder if you could get a better image from a video cam with the subject bathed in red light as opposed to IR?

[KD4MOJ]

Howdy BB:

  The IR led's will "light up" the subject or box space in this case in a 'white' light as if you were shining a bright flashlight. Yours and my vision can't see that without a camera or some other device that shows that part of the spectrum The regular red LED's will just illuminate the area in red light so it won't be natural and you would have to use LOTS of red LED's to light up the space.  Some "el cheapo" night vision cameras use a lower spectrum IR LED (which is higher in frequency) that you can actually see a faint red glow when turned on. More higher priced cameras use the true higher IR's (which are lower in frequency...weird I know) so when looking at it... you will not see anything and can't even tell it's turned on.

If I remember this part of my radio theory (frequency based)... they see above our spectrum... ultraviolet (UV) which is higher that what we see... IR is actually below what we see. All this is weird when you think about it. Seems that IR should be up around UV.

  I had a chart once that showed what the bee's optical range was in the light spectrum (comparing flower colors) but I can't find it on the computer at the moment. Guess I'll have to google it again.

...DOUG
KD4MOJ

[Bee Busters]

the best one I saw was a top bar hive with a camera mounted in the far end so you could see the bees coming in the entrance on the other end and building up the comb.  It was done in time lapse or high speed.  Very cool to watch