Bee-hive scale

#Common types of bee-hives include those known as Langstroth-types. These include stacked elements of hive bodies and supers. Frequent readings of both the total weight of the hive and of the individual hive bodies would be of great value to the bee keeper in monotoring the progress in the production of honey and in assisting him to manage and control bee-hive activity. The weight of a honey storage super tells how much honey is stored. The day-to-day change indicates the strength of the "honey flow" and this information permits the keeper to timely add supers or remove them. In preparing the hive for winter, weighing is virtually the only practical means for assuring that stores are sufficient for the entire winter or to determine what corrective or supplemental measures may be necessary.

#At present, hives are more or less permanently set upon scales in the apiary. Usually only one hive among many is scale-mounted and the assumption is made that the non-mounted hives are in the same condition indicated on the single scale. It is well known that this is a poor assumption.

#A second method involves a two men team, or a man with a tripod and pole using "fish-scales" to actually weigh each hive. This method is expensive and clumsy and doesn't readily show the weight of each hive body.

#In the Drawings:

#FIG. 1 is a sectional side elevation view of a bee-hive and the probe of the apparatus to be inserted therein with the position of portions of the bee-hive when the probe is inserted therein shown in phantom;

#FIG. 2 is a sectional top view of the bee-hive;

#FIGS. 1 and 2 show a conventional bee-hive 20 of the type commonly identified as a Langstroth-type hive. The hive 20 includes a bottom board 22 to close off the bottom of the hive and a hive outer cover 24 to close off the top. An entrance 26 is located near the bottom of the front of the hive. In stacked relationship within the hive, from bottom to top, are a first hive body 28, a second hive body 30, a first honey super 32 and a second honey super 34. The first hive body generally acts as a brood chamber and the second hive body generally acts as a brood chamber and food storage chamber.

#As will be noted from FIG. 2, the hive body 28, as well as the hive body 30, include an open top and an open bottom and contain interior comb frames 36.

#When it is desired to weigh one of the hive bodies or a super, all that is necessary is that the probe 38 of scale 40 be inserted between two of the stacked members to shift their position such as shown by the phantom line 42 in FIG. 1. Thereafter the weight upon the probe will result in a reading.