> Scales and flow hives and know nothing beekeepers -- 
> all these encourage people to not open hives. 

The difference is that a "Flow Hive" generates no data at all, and may be
heavy enough to discourage some from lifting it off to look at the brood
below, while weighing hives generates an accurate set of data that is easy
to interpret and prompts targeted and focused beekeeper intervention.

Weight data from all one's hives encourages one to open hives more often,
focusing one's attention on the specific hives that NEED a look, rather than
wasting time and effort looking at hives where there is clearly no need for
beekeeper intervention.  In this specific spring, you could easily see when
to super each yard.  Everyone who has undertaken this specific endeavor has
expressed amazement at how much earlier the detectable nectar comes in the
door than they suspected, so it turns out that no one really knows when to
super any more unless they weigh a good sample of hives, and detect the
earliest foragers that bring back nectar.  

In the City, we are well into cheery blossoms, but the bees have barely
flown, so hives continue to have net weight losses, rather than gains.  Some
hives have needed new candyboards to safely avoid starvation, despite all
the lovely blooms.  Some hives have consumed so little of their stores in
recent weeks that it has been obvious that their populations had become too
small to be viable, prompting some combining of hives, and even some
temporary indoor queen banking to avoid complete losses.  

These are the effects of simple metrics on beekeeping - one can rescue
queens from hives that lack a critical mass of bees and make a "queen bank"
for all such queens, and one can know which queens to rescue before it gets
warm enough to do an inspection, so that they can be rescued on the
first-occurring half-decent day.  You can't do that without data. 

> To me, the reason for having hives of my own 
> is to be able to open them whenever I feel like it.

That's fine for a small-scale hobbyist, but this behavior does not scale
well, not even to the "dozens of hives" level.   At some point, the opening
and examination of each and every hive becomes tedious even when it is
possible to do so at whim.  For me, that point started in about mid-June in
VA, when I had to change not just socks, but also sneakers, as both were
completely soaked with sweat by 11am.

While it certainly must be nice to have no need for planning, organization,
or record-keeping, such things to come into play for even the most casual
beekeeper when unexpected things force the beekeeper's hand, such as fall
turning abruptly warm again, prompting concerns about how much of what one
fed each hive will still be on the hive when the unexpected warm spell ends.


I would argue that a lack of metrics-driven planning, organization and
record-keeping does a disservice to one's bees, and is disrespectful of one
of God's creatures, but it is hard to express actual concern for the welfare
of the bees themselves without sounding like a tree-hugging, whale-saving,
hawk-watching, penguin de-oiling... never mind - upon reflection, I have no
problem with sounding exactly like that.  :)

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