# Inspection Camera



## babybee (Mar 23, 2012)

No I haven't, but I would love to see if an infrared camera that was calibrated for the temperature and the quantity of the bees that produced that heat considering the outside temp and condition would work for fairly grading bees for almonds. If it would the grader could scan them at night when all the bees are at home and know exactly what is there. On another note, I must say that I don't personally shop at harbor freight anymore. Everything there is made in China. A country that manipulates it's currency to have an unfair trading advantage, plus child labor and forced prison labor, oh and we are funding their ever growing military. We all hate cheap Chinese honey and yet love all other cheap Chinese things. Let's buy American


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## Keith Jarrett (Dec 10, 2006)

babybee said:


> A country that manipulates it's currency to have an unfair trading advantage, plus child labor . Let's buy American


Amen to that BB well said.
There was a thread about brewers yeast, one of the posters was bragging how great it was.... I asked is it from the USA like nutra Bee is???? They wouldn't answer the question. We buy USA products for nutra Bee, is it a little more.... yes... but we can sleep well at night knowing were helping put Americans to work with a job rather than someone from far away place. We need jobs in this country really bad, do what you can to help out your fellow man.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

I use a similar version in my repair shop, there okay, not very handy for beekeeping. You have no size reference, you won't be sure where your at in the hive and you can only see a very small window. Open the top....


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## Honey-4-All (Dec 19, 2008)

gmcharlie said:


> I use a similar version in my repair shop, there okay, not very handy for beekeeping. You have no size reference, you won't be sure where your at in the hive and you can only see a very small window. Open the top....


I agree with Charlie that they would be of little or little or no use.

I purchased the Milwaukee version of this for a forklift repair and can not envision much usefulness for live colonies in the winter unless I want to become a vouyer of mouse droppings on a bottom board. 

Bending over after tipping a hive and getting a peek from the bottom up with the aid of a good flashlight might give you better results. 

if its so cold you shouldn't open them up them maybe a wait and see until the weather gives you the "all clear" would be better. 

Another option if you decide to forget the peepers creepers routine......How about going out and asking Santa for a stethoscope???


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

This is going to be unbelievable, but trust me......A while back I worked with a gentleman who had retired, working on the SSI, lasers in space. One day his buddy stopped over with a IR camera(Raytheon?) that was so good( I think it cost 30K), you could walk across the floor, and he would show you your thermal foot prints on the floor. Later , he came to my house and took pictures of an apparatus(not saying) that we where working on, with us in the picture. The output was a digital picture, with all of the isotherms a scaled color. I believe you could easily view a group of hives and detect internal conditions from the exterior. 

OK, so we can't afford that, but after that I have handled a few Military surplus IR vision systems that are not as good, but may able to compare images of hives without scaled values of temperature.

Crazy Roland, but not as crazy as my buddy that put IR headlights in his car, IR goggles on , and drives thru the woods in total darkness.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Roland You can do that with a FLIR 5 for about 2k. they are handy but a bit limited. I have one, and yes they will read hives, but tells you little information about whats going on inside.


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## MAB52 (Jan 20, 2013)

Thanks for the input, sounds like another great idea that is impractical. 
" Let's buy American " I agree, we were in Home Depot the other day and saw the one that Milwaukee makes and mentioned that this might work to look inside the hives and a buddy mentioned that harbor freight had them also, so I was looking at their website when I thought I would ask to see if anyone has tried them. The one from Milwaukee looks like it is a much better one anyway.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

GMcharlie, not the same cameras. I agree, yours would be of little value(no offense intended). 

This camera had about a 2" black lens, and a body the volume of two grapefruits. The output was a digital file. I will try to look up the man that owned it, and see what he thinks it could do.

Crazy Roland


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Understood. The tech has advanced My I5 will show footprints no problem. Digital no problem, movies no problem Or you can just watch it on the tiny screen Got it to evaluate heat in packages. Point being if you want IR tech its now cheap and easy. The I5 is great for looking for heat loss in a house or watching equipment. you can see problems heat wise long before hand. does fine on hives but all you see is a mass of warmth. it doesn't tell you much.
Mointoring swarms is the same problem, they don't change much at all until they break up and run the screen.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

You may be right, if you can see footprints. Can you see a thermal plume from an upper entrance?

Crazy Roland


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## MAB52 (Jan 20, 2013)

Here is a link with more info
http://store.flir.com/product/i3-infrared-camera-refurbished/refurbished-i-series


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Roland said:


> You may be right, if you can see footprints. Can you see a thermal plume from an upper entrance?
> 
> Crazy Roland


 No, that is a limit.... thermal plumes are invisible yet in this price range.. Wish I could see that it would solve my problems!


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Try putting a horizontal piece of paper immediately above the upper entrance. It may change temperature enough, and have enough mass, to show up on your camera.

Crazy Roland


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

MAB52 said:


> Anyone try one of these cameras to inspect hives in winter and do they work or not.:lookout:
> Mike
> .


Our farm has one of these cameras, and I had exactly the same idea as you. So I took it out to my wintering shed and poked it into the entrance of an emptyish hive to see if there was st a live cluster up top. Useless. The lense gets smudged up and you lose your orientation very quick as the probe maneuvers up. 

I called that exercise looking into a beehive a failure. It works great for checking out final drives on machinery though ,


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## dixiebooks (Jun 21, 2010)

I've looked at those, but am holding out for a good deal on a camera which will record video to some sort of onboard memory. -js


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## dgl1948 (Oct 5, 2005)

I just use an infrared thermometer and take a reading through the upper entrance. We winter outside so when you have good temps in the hive you know it is still strong.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Good thought. I will ponder it. Actually the work I was/am doing is comparing packages cooling capacity. I have a new package that suppliers are useing and was looking for a way to compare actual heat loss, and to evaluate different colors on heat dissipation in clusters of bees.


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## Honey-4-All (Dec 19, 2008)

gmcharlie said:


> Good thought. I will ponder it. Actually the work I was/am doing is comparing packages cooling capacity. I have a new package that suppliers are useing and was looking for a way to compare actual heat loss, and to evaluate different colors on heat dissipation in clusters of bees.


Charlie, The heat exchange rate from your bus will be only limited by the airflow away from the packages when "mass stacked" . This might occur because of the tight spacing between the tops and the bottoms of each package when stacked. A 1x2 laid on edge between layers would reduce "problem" significantly! Been considering this for the trailers. 

As to how much more the bees can take because of the extra ventilation only time will tell. I'm not about to push them to the edge to find out. 

The issue of excessive heat loss from wind exposure when carried in an "open bed" might be a problem when its below 50 degrees during transport.

Overall I think the bus is still going to be a grand slam compared to a walk to first base. Both boxes will get you there. Just not as fast and in as safe a shape when you need to chat with the first base coach who is bound to tell you to tuck your shirt in even though its to hot out!!!


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Thanks, we know it has better ventilation than the old one, we also know from firsthand experience last year, that the cold is not a problem bees just suck up tighter. what we were/are trying to discern, is black better or worse than white? Some serious discussion that the shadeing provided by the darker boxes keeps the bees calmer. 
I also have some guys who swear the box is too small for 3lb packages. they have some silly notion about heat buildup and the size of the box. 
We know from testing that you can put 2lb or 4lb in the same box and the start running at the same time. Temp is rise is about ambient temp much more than the size of the cluster. 

Hmm I am getting off topic arn't I......


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