High frequencies at bee audio recordings

Hi guys, I wanted to know if its possible for bees to generate frequencies in the order of 15KHz is it practical biologically? in my recording there are some components in 15KHz is that only component noise and environmental factors?

Would not expect this, did you measure in the hive or outside? What mic are you using? Best would be to put the same technical setting in a hive without bees (!) or outside a hive. In case you have still the artefacts / this frequencies they are not from the bees. Do you have this observations in the raw data file or do you see it in some aggrated data? Could be the aggration an error factor?

There is a paper by Spangler who measured higher frequency content in bee hives, see 2nd half of Erste Analyse der Audio-Daten des BeABee-Projekts - #12 by weef . Science does not yet know the reason behind this; it is assumed, that the bees use these ultrasonic sounds for ‘measuring’ proper dimension of an empty honeycomb cell during building it up in darkness (resonance frequency of an empty cell is said to be in the ~35kHz range). Following this, it could mean that higher ultrasonic activity results from higher building activity - but more research here is needed to make valid statements about it.

2 Likes