a Charles Linder snip.. 
90% of hives are dying from something other than starvation,  and those are
the clueless.  If you allowed a hive to starve out,  you would fit into one
of the groups of the poorest beekeepers possible,  and a scale would not
have helped you.

my comment...
well the first thing we might disagree on here is you 90% estimate.  I would say over my life time more hives (managed and not managed) died from starvation than for any other single cause.  Quite commonly with the new beekeeper set this will occur about one month before the onset of spring.  One single data point and a sack of sugar and a bit of water + some method to feed would on many occasion could have prevented this loss.  In some location no matter how you manage bees there is going to be occasions when you must feed bees.  Knowing when and how much is imho the larger question.

more common in the north than the south you can also have starvation with rations still in the box... but sadly just out of reach.  This relative position of food resources was also something the physics professor worked into his little experiment which was published in the ABJ (I want to say late 1960ish).  So there was actually two sets of data produced by scaling the front and the back of the hive.  The physics professor use a spring loaded fish scale and when I recreated his experiment on my own I used the newer digital form of the same device (bought at WalMart for about $15).  when I recreated this little experiment I also crunched the numbers and with a bit of statistical wand wavy created a pretty simple formula for translating tipping weight into total weight and therefore also drives decisions concerning how much and how often to feed. 

the weight hives of course requires no equipment but may require a good bit of experience.  at the knuckle dragging level of beekeeping this was called 'hefting' the hive.  which I now commonly use myself although I call it tipping since I don't even try to 'heft' the entire hives like the old beekeeper commonly did.  I am old and have a poor back.   at certain times of the year tipping also informs me the bottom box is empty so it also can drive any decision to reverse < use to do this once a year but now twice. 



  

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