Having evolved with flowering plants, honey bees have been on earth for millions of years and have been exploited by mankind for thousands of years.
There are records of pottery vessels used as beehives some 9000 years ago and Egyptian art 4500 years old recorded aspects of beekeeping.
Over the years almost anything with a cavity has been used to house bees, but the standard hive of today was developed as recently as mid-19th century by a cleric in Philadelphia.
This Langstroth hive was designed, not for the bees which are happy in any cavity, but to allow beekeeper access to the colony and its honeycombs.
By opening the hive, the beekeeper can inspect the whole colony to assess its health and view the honey stores.
Harvesting the honey disturbs the bees as frames of comb are removed one by one to be extracted and then returned to the hive of (now) cranky bees.
This hive and has stood the test of time, with little fundamental change in 150 years, until recently when the Anderson family, with the use of modern technology, developed the Flow Hive which enables honey to be harvested without opening the hive and without disturbing the bees.
But the beekeeper still has to open the hive regularly to check on the health of the bees and their productivity.
At the 2019 field day of the Amateur Beekeepers' Association, a presentation explained and illustrated how modern technology can virtually look inside a beehive without opening it.
Using electronically connected scales under a hive its weight and honey stores can be monitored from afar.
This has proved to be a more reliable assessment of nectar flow in the foraging area than simple inspection of the flora.
It has also provided interesting information about the activity of bees as spring approaches.
Despite nectar flow and increased foraging, the hive weight has been observed to drop due to increased consumption of winter honey stores as rearing escalates.
The technique has potential as a research tool.
Infrared photography gives valuable information about the bees, for both practical management and research.
By clustering around the combs, the bees maintain the temperature brood nest at 35 degrees and by showing the size of the cluster infrared imaging gives information about the health of the colony.
Since the bees warm only the brood nest and not the honey and pollen stores, this imaging can reveal a queenless colony.
It has also provided valuable research information about thermodynamics within a beehive.
Precise location of a wild bee's nest within a wall can be difficult - it may be some way from the entrance where one sees the bees going in and out.
Infrared photography reveals all by the tell-tale hot spot, potentially minimising the extent of wall destruction required to access the nest.
Temperature monitoring by probes within the hive provides similar information.
