Each colony state is modeled as a sum of Gaussian frequency bands whose center, width and amplitude evolve over a simulated 100-second recording, rendered directly as a frequency (rows, 60–1200 Hz) vs. time (columns) spectrogram:
- Queenright — a steady, narrow-band hum around 200–250 Hz with slow amplitude “breathing”.
- Queenless — the fundamental rises and wanders (250–450 Hz) with irregular tonal “worker piping” bursts.
- Swarming — broadband noise floods 200–650 Hz, punctuated by sharp queen “piping” and “quacking” tones.
Mic distance attenuates signal gain; background noise raises a deterministic pseudo-random noise floor mixed into every cell, lowering the estimated SNR — the same trade-off a real acoustic hive monitor faces.