Building a hive for filming

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Nakedapiarist

House Bee
Joined
May 13, 2015
Messages
142
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0
Location
Birmingham
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
2
Anyone got any experience of filming in a hive? I'd like to shoot time lapse of comb building.

Now that I have a hive indoors I'm wondering about building a five frame super with a glass side. I'd plan on using national frame top bars - but just that - Top bar style so I've a view with nothing in the way.

I'm wondering if the bees would get cheesed off with a flash every five minutes ( I think I can guess the answer ) if I should go down the route of modifying a camera to IR use or whether a low level of illumination ( 10w bulb ) and long exposure would leave them happy ( reasoning that an open mesh floor isn't light proof anyway )

The glass is going to get dirty so I figured setting up so I can slide in a fresh pane would be a good idea.
 
Long exposure will give lots of motion blur.

The higher iso camera you can get the better. for faster shutter speeds.

Good luck.
 
Splodge said:
Long exposure will give lots of motion blur.

The higher iso camera you can get the better. for faster shutter speeds.

Good luck.
Click to expand...

Motion blur could be an advantage here - my Slrs go up to 1600 but the comb will be crawling with bees. To get roughly 2 mins of footage I'll need a frame every 4 mins for a week, on a short exposure the bees would flicker in and out of shot at a maddening rate, if I can stretch to a 30s to 1min exposure the bees will blur in to a mist but the comb should remain steady.

I could set up two cameras and try both approaches.
 
Nakedapiarist said:
...if I should go down the route of modifying a camera to IR use or whether a low level of illumination ( 10w bulb ) and long exposure would leave them happy ( reasoning that an open mesh floor isn't light proof anyway )
Click to expand...

It's my understanding that bees can't see red, so if that is correct then they would hardly notice it if you used red LEDs or a filter over the light. If you were going to go IR, I assume you'd be happy with a black and white conversion from the red. A flash is obviously not good if you do long exposures.

For your sliding pane idea, you might want a continuous slot so that you can slide the new pane into the same grooves as the old one and push the old one out of the other side with the new one so that no bees come out.
 
Pollen said:
It's my understanding that bees can't see red, so if that is correct then they would hardly notice it if you used red LEDs or a filter over the light. If you were going to go IR, I assume you'd be happy with a black and white conversion from the red. A flash is obviously not good if you do long exposures.

For your sliding pane idea, you might want a continuous slot so that you can slide the new pane into the same grooves as the old one and push the old one out of the other side with the new one so that no bees come out.
Click to expand...

I was thinking something similar with the pane - but by having a double thickness groove with one pane of glass and one dummy pane ( ie open frame to hold it in place ) when I need to change glass, slide out dummy, slide in new glass, slide out old glass, insert dummy.

I don't mind doing B&W but colour would be nice - I'll have plenty of time to play with it so I'll probably end up trying all of them. :)
 
Time lapse is difficult with variable light sources, so the flash you suggest is one way out. But with comb behind glass you'll have a lot of problems with reflections. Without glass, the camera probably gets covered in propolis. Only thing I can think of at the moment is to protect the camera and flash by using glass windows, possibly something frequently replaced like a microscope slide.
 
Nakedapiarist said:
Anyone got any experience of filming in a hive? I'd like to shoot time lapse of comb building.

Now that I have a hive indoors I'm wondering about building a five frame super with a glass side. I'd plan on using national frame top bars - but just that - Top bar style so I've a view with nothing in the way.

I'm wondering if the bees would get cheesed off with a flash every five minutes ( I think I can guess the answer ) if I should go down the route of modifying a camera to IR use or whether a low level of illumination ( 10w bulb ) and long exposure would leave them happy ( reasoning that an open mesh floor isn't light proof anyway )

The glass is going to get dirty so I figured setting up so I can slide in a fresh pane would be a good idea.
Click to expand...
Sysonby knoll have a camera in a hive, you could try them to see if they could help
Will
 
Awesome, melton mobray isn't far from me - not quite cycling distance but close enough
Thanks!
 
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