Here comes the Sun (and the rain; and the humidity)

I introduced a few technical enhancements to the garden today also. 

The first of these was the new wireless weather sensor system. There are many such systems on the market ranging from £50 to over £500 depending the features and level of "remoteness" you need. The really expensive ones are designed to be used at long distances (e.g. for professional meteorology) rather than in a garden. 

I opted for a reasonably-priced touchscreen system from eBay. It was under £100 but offers all the main features for a home system - and most importantly, is simple to use and program thanks to the touchscreen interface. It has a PC interface and software that allows you to download and plot historical data from the main control unit. All in all, it seems good value for money. 

The pole comes with metal straps for fixing to a fence post, but they were too short to go round my post. So, I drilled the top of the post and mounted the sensor that way.

weather sensor mounted in garden

The purpose of the weather station is to add to our overall awareness and data set so we can correlate with bee behaviour. It will be handy in the first instance just to be able to correlate temperature with activity (if indeed there is a correlation) but also compare other factors, such as impending rain or storm and see how well the bees are able to sense and predict it. (At this stage, I think they can rather well.)

Also, the small LCD thermometers I also ordered from eBay finally arrived the other day too; so the other achievement today was to install that in the front nestbox. It has a metre long wire which runs into the box and the readout (which is permanently on) can just be placed anywhere in the vicinity. Simple, but effective.

Thermometer in front nestboxThe final bit of tech I am testing is the wireless infra-red camera (also an eBay scoop!). I've nothing to report on that yet as I have to test it over the course of several nights in various locations.