Fluidization experiments have been conducted at ambient conditions in air-glass bead beds equipped with a specially designed heat-transfer probe. The temperature history is recorded in each case for a period of 92 s at different angular positions on the probe surface. The data are statistically analyzed to compute the local heat-transfer coefficient, standard deviation of surface temperature, and major frequency from the power spectral density function. The variations of these quantities as a function of fluidization number are employed to characterize the bed-quality fluidization. Three sizes of glass beads of average diameters 296, 986 and 2093 mu m are used as bed materials. Bed properties capable of discriminating the different fluidization regimes are identified.