> So, long story short: If you lift the hive barely of the ground your scale should give you 1/2 of the weight

Right. However, if it is not level or if you lift further than that, the reading will be inaccurate. A simpler explanation is that the "center of gravity" shifts. At level, the distribution would be 50/50 but as you tip upwards, your side gets light till it reaches zero when the hive is balanced on the scale, as in Mike Palmer's photo. 

This lesson was brought home to me many decades before when I was working for a beekeeper in So California. He had many hundreds of hives, probably 1000, but loaded them all by hand. No loader, no forklift, just unskilled help like me. We were about the same size, so the weight was shared.

Jim told me a story of how he hired this burly guy to help him. After they had moved the bulk of the hives from the desert to the coast, the big guy said: "How come I am always completely tired out after we move bees, but you're not?" Jim told him: "I guess you didn't notice, but I always tip the hive toward you, so you carry most of the weight."

PLB

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html