photos on the way.
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photos on the way.
jkbees, (my mentee), and i will be weighing hives today. more to come
I am not yet seeing how this is suppose to work.
I not sure either, but I'm guessing that the hive is set on the plywood piece which is attached to the scale and two man handle by the straps.Quote:
Originally Posted by Acebird
the plywood is just a dummy board for splitting the space of a ten frame deep into two spaces.
here's how the scale works.
more to come later with the weight(s)/hive.
Attachment 3463
Similar to the one I used to use...
http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/f...ringscale1.jpg
Also a two person scale...
http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/f...ringscale2.jpg
yep, similiar idea. we have smaller overwintering colonies down here. mine are averaging about 80lbs, but the bottom mediums are mostly foundation at this point. i pick up the left, then the right side respectively and add the two. it's very close to the same weight i get if i pick up the whole hive, and the hive stays stable.
I use this old thing I found amongst some equipment I bought a couple of years ago. The pointer is off, but if I take off 110 pounds it gives quite an accurate weight. I only weigh individual boxes and nucs on it.
http://s1110.beta.photobucket.com/us...ml?sort=6&o=21
Is he doing arm curls in that first picture, sure looks like it? John
Unless you staple the boxes together and grab just the top box with a sling the hive will be tippy. You can use two rachet straps that hold down a stick with a hook in the center to the cover. Then put your scale on the hook and lift. This will be very stableQuote:
Originally Posted by squarepeg
The short partner should stand erect and hold his end of the bar in the center of his chest while the tall partner bends his knees, hooks the load and then straighten his legs to lift the load. It would be better to make the lifting bar longer on the side who is doing the lifting so he has space to bend his knees.
This is a portable scale I made out of welded aluminum jig plate (I run a metal shop), but it could be made out of 2 x 2 boards as well. It has a digital luggage scale and is very portable and very quick. I tilt up each side of a hive and average the number. I take that number and plot out each hive on an Excel graph. Very interesting info.
Attachment 3478
thanks ace. i didn't have an extra man for the picture, so i don't show an actual measurement.Quote:
Originally Posted by Acebird
thankfully, the prototype worked flawlessly and without necessitating further modification.
the hook at the bottom of the strap catches perfectly around the underside 'lip' of the bottom board. i found that asking the assistant to keep the wooden bar level to where i set my side, allowed me to control the lift nicely, and get a reading with only a fraction of an inch of 'tip'. we were careful to set the hive down gently, and the bees never knew we were there.
it's about a 60 second procedure per hive. i used the same digital voice recorder that i use for my inspections, and transfered the weights to the journals later.
this set up works well with my stands, because there is nothing in the way of setting the hook on either side.
i think i'll use the scale next spring in lieu of opening the hives as much to see how much honey they have stored.
very kewl belew!Quote:
Originally Posted by Belewsboy
Why do you average, you should add them together?Quote:
Originally Posted by Belewsboy
This is the same idea with a bathroom scale but I have a 2/3 mechanical advantage so I multiply 2/3 time the scale reading.
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...inghive001.jpg
Looks like a very workable system. I love simple solutions. Those stains on the front of the hive do not look good though. Do you know the source? Have they been there long?Quote:
Originally Posted by Acebird
Nosema. A couple years ago. Bees can get really cramped up in the winter around here. It gets cleaned up in the spring.
Actually I take an average and multiply that by a constant I came up with by weighing a hive on a bathroom scale. But you may be right as my constant results in about the same number as adding the two readings together. Not sure how I came up with my method, but it just didn't seem right that lifting one side would equal half the hive weight assuming the weight was even on each side.
the weights of the two sides are usually not exactly the same. but adding the two was very close to the weight of the whole hive on the few that i did both ways.
The odds are it won't be equal because there could be more honey on one side than the other. But if one side measures 70 pounds and the other side measures 50 the hive weighs 120. If you were to sling the whole thing from a rope you would confirm that. What you need to be careful of is not tipping the hive because that will change the CG and throw the readings off. I can actually see this happening with my fulcrum method on the scale reading. The greatest reading is just before it tips and then the reading will go down.Quote:
Originally Posted by Belewsboy