I love this subject. I discovered through experiment that the
distribution of stores within a hive can greatly affect the weight
derived by simply weighing one end of a hive and multiplying by 2.
Better to weigh both sides and add them together.
I think the basic manometer approach is the way to go because it's
simple and in theory has no moving parts. My first proof-of-concept
experiment involved a piece of surgical rubber tubing about 10' long
filled with water with a glass pipette stuck in one end. The tubing was
coiled into a loose spiral under a hive with the pipette taped
vertically to a corner of the hive. It worked, after a fashion.
The Some time ago I searched the BEE-L archives and came up with this
message which nicely describes a manometer for weighing hives made from
a plastic bag used in those cardboard wine boxes:
http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9610B&L=BEE-L&P=R5349&I=-3
George-
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