PasiekaOlek · Małopolskie, PL · Gear · Sep 30, 2026

Tracking winter hive weight without opening — bathroom scale hack, luggage scale on one side, or a real hive scale?

Fifth season in Małopolskie, ten hives, and I want to stop guessing this winter. Hefting has worked well enough, but I got a fright last March when a colony I'd hefted as "fine" in February was nearly dry three weeks later. I want numbers, or at least a trend I can trust. Options I'm looking at, cheapest first. A bathroom scale under one side of the hive, lifting the other side on a wooden fulcrum, doubling the reading. A luggage scale hooked under the back rail, lift, double it. Or spending real money on two Bluetooth hive scales and rotating them. What has actually worked for you over a winter? How much error is there in the one-side-and-double method with a lopsided hive? Weekly, fortnightly, monthly? And is a single scale hive as a sentinel for the whole apiary good enough, or does consumption vary too much colony to colony?

#hive-scale#hefting#winter-stores#monitoring

▲ 1 votes 💬 2 replies

2 replies

SkaneBees · Sep 30, 2026

A sentinel scale hive is what I run in Skåne — one strong colony on a proper platform scale, logged every week, the rest hefted. Consumption does vary between colonies, but the SHAPE of the curve is the same for all of them: nearly flat in December and January, then a steep drop from late February once brood rearing starts. So the sentinel tells you when to go and heft everything else. One scale for ten hives is money well spent; two Bluetooth toys that eat batteries at -10°C, less so.

HokkaidoHachi · Sep 30, 2026

I did the bathroom scale and fulcrum for two winters in Hokkaido. It works until the snow comes — after that you cannot reach the hive base, and by January my hives are under a metre of snow anyway. So I take a proper weight in late October before the snow, and the next one in the March thaw. The gap is the winter consumption and it has been reassuringly consistent year to year. If your winters are less snowy the method is fine, just keep the fulcrum position identical every time.

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