I don't know how much you've looked at 10-minute weight measurements of
colonies over time, Charlie, but in an environment such as mine, where
colony weights hold steady this time of season, I suspect that it would be
very easy to detect a loss of an appreciable amount of the foraging force
in the morning, compared to baseline values and control hives 



If you added control hives of almost identical size you may have a point,  but I fear not for the following.
The link we shared (dont have it handy) on moving hives shows that it takes about 3 days for the hive to "return" to its previous gathering level.   indication it takes the hive 3 days to accomplish 2 things as I see it.  First to map the area,  and secondly "if" bees are lost to replace the missing foragers.  From that report I suspect missing foragers are a big part of it,  but it is unclear.
The other factor is equal flow.  I am seeing huge yard to yard variations this seasaon in flow rates (paying close attention)  so I am not sure how to add that varible to the mix either.    With bee theoreticly leaving the hive and returning within 30 minutes with a nectar load,  I am not sure how the potential lost foragers would be involved?  do all forager start at 8 am?  or do they trickle in and out over a larger time period?
To your point I agree  large changes may be visable,  but with my end goal of trying to figure out best practice in moving,  I would like more pretty cuarte information.  Certian techniques may prrovid incremental changes that I suspect would be difficult to tease out useing weight alone,  given the accuracy level of my current scales.
I may give your method a whirl if time allows,  but a good bi directional counter is still the dream!

Charles

   

             ***********************************************
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