Ted
 
I'm not aware of an electronic scale hive under a CCD colony.  
 
We did manage to get a bi-directional bee counter on the entrance of one.  
Our counter consists of a row of portals, each portal has two Infra-red  
detectors under a clear floor, an IR emitter in the roof).   The  counter queries the 
detectors 200x per second.  The software notes which  detector is blocked and 
in what order, for each of the 16 portals.  The  portals (small tunnels) are 
just wide enough for a single bee to pass at a  time.
 
We've run these counters for more than a decade.  They are very  reliable and 
VERY accurate.  A healthy colony generally sees 94-96% return  for any given 
day.  The small percentage loss is from bees that drift, get  lost, or die in 
the field.  We've seen colonies with 98% return  rates.  Some exceed 100% due 
to drift.
 
Amazingly, some colonies recorded over 0.5 M flights per day.  Quarter  
million is fairly common.
 
Biggest problem with CCD - you don't know which colony is going to get  it.  
IF we did, it would be easy to rig them up with counters.
 
Note, a scale only gives you weight changes.  The counters give you  the 
numbers of bees exiting and entering the colony for every minute of the  day/night.
 
Jerry
 
 



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