The Dielectric Properties of Worker Bee Homogenate in a High Frequency Electric Field

Biological tissues, including insect tissues, are among lossy dielectric materials. The permittivity properties of these materials are described by loss factor ε″ and loss tangent tgδ. The dielectric properties of the worker honeybee body homogenate are tested in the range of high frequencies from 1 MHz to 6 GHz. The homogenate is produced by mixing whole worker honeybees and tested with an epsilometer from Compass Technology and a Copper Mountain Technologies vector circuit analyser VNA. Due to their consistency, the homogenate samples are placed inside polyurethane sachets. The measured permittivity relates to two components of a sample: homogenate and polyurethane. For five samples, two extremes were specified for the permittivity, loss factor ε″, and the loss tangent tgδ, for the frequency range 20 ÷ 80 MHz and 3 GHz. Four techniques of testing permittivity in biological tissues were used to determine the dielectric properties of the homogenate. A calculation model was developed featuring a minimum measurement error of the loss factor ε″ and the loss tangent tgδ. The power absorbed per unit volume is described for the whole frequency range.