My Hive-Scale Data

[c10250]

A season on the hive-scale.  I learned a lot.  You will notice three main spikes in weight.  These account for Black Locust flow, the main flow starting with Linden, the fall flow starting with Goldenrod.  The fall flow was interrupted quite a bit by bad weather.  Total hive weight gain around 213 lbs!

enjoy.

[oblib]

Just curious, I know some of that was brood and bees. How much of that gain was honey?

[Old Blue]

Thanks for sharing that with us. 

Can you please tell us about your weighing set up?  I would love to be able to track a hives weight but the methods I have seen so far aren't affordable or practical to me. 

Did you monitor the interior to keep them supplied with open comb or do you think they basically filled it and then just continued fill the space as it became available with the ripening process? 

Old Blue
Mercillessly overtaxed and punishingly over regulated in
Kali-bone-ya

[Sundog]

Very interesting data, impressive weight gain.  How big is your hive?

Thank you for sharing.

[c10250]

The hive started out as a new hive, single deep, with little or no stores.  I added another deep and a super to start, and then proceeded with normal hive management from there, adding and pulling supers. I NEVER FED.

Every time something was added to, or pulled from the hive, the data was adjusted accordingly.  So what you are seeing is simply total gain, and not necessarily total weight.

All of this is explained on NASA's honeybeenet page.

The total gain was mainly honey/pollen.  The bees probably accounted for 10 lbs or so.  Wax?  Probably around 20 lbs.  Just my guess.

To answer the question of how the hive was weighed, the total hive sat on a feed scale (platform scale).  You can get these cheap from Craig's List.  I think I paid $40 for it.  My brother and I bought 2 more for another $40.  Just keep the hive on the scale 24/7.

[c10250]

Just some more information . . . I took a total of around 125 lbs of honey off the hive.  Because it was a totally new  hive, with little to no stores, they had to fill the deeps enough to make it through the winter.  My guess is that I left them with around 60-70 lbs of honey. The double-deep weighed 145 lbs.  If this hive makes it through the winter, I'm expecting good things next year!

[c10250]

duplicate post . . .

[oblib]

Not to derail your thread but 1 quick question please... I am starting in the spring and I trying to figure when my nector flows start. I live about 4 hr south of you near Terre Haute, IN. so I figure I prob 1 week ahead of you. Were the flows you had this year about right as for time of start? Or were they early/late? thanks

[c10250]

Not to derail your thread but 1 quick question please... I am starting in the spring and I trying to figure when my nector flows start. I live about 4 hr south of you near Terre Haute, IN. so I figure I prob 1 week ahead of you. Were the flows you had this year about right as for time of start? Or were they early/late? thanks

This was my first year keeping data, so I don't know if the flows were early or late.  I can tell you though that NASA's honeybee net is a great place to get that information.  Here's some hive-scale data from Indianapolis:

[BlueBee]

Nice work C10250.