> Starvation in winter is the only thing it can
> possible tell you,
There's a lot more to it than one might think at first glance.
If you bother to do it, weighing a large sample (or all ) of one's hives can
tell you much more.
Weighing all one's hives, rather than just one or two, can provide a (much
more useful) scatter-diagram of values, which will include the outliers that
are the leading indicators - the first hive to bring in nectar from a bloom,
the last hive to stop bringing in nectar from that same bloom.
While it is not "rocket science", there are actual rocket scientists who are
using hive weight data to track the impact of global warming on earlier
bloom dates and on the strange situations like the one we have now, where we
are well into the fruit tree blooms, and bees have not been able to fly for
2 weeks, and temps have dropped low enough to freeze blooms. The lack of
synchronization between the bees, which need a run of warm days, and plants,
when can advance toward bloom on isolated warm days (Growing Degree Days),
is an issue that most people ignore. I think they do so at their own bees'
peril. See http://honeybeenet.gsfc.nasa.gov
> and if you had opened the dang hive and
> looked, you wouldn't need a scale.
In the scenario you cited of winter starvation risk, one can weigh, record
the weights, do a trendline, and accurately predict when the hive needs to
be fed if it is to avoid starvation at current rates of consumption. One
can thereby pro-actively feed on the rare days that present good weather for
getting feed on the bees. You can't do that by "opening the dang hive and
looking". The ability to manage and plan, and stay ahead of the bees,
rather than be forced to react, is a very significant change in how one
manages bees.
The use of data-driven objective metrics to be able to proactively plan may
be the biggest change in bee management since moveable frames, but it is
only useful because we are experiencing climate change. "Predicting the
future" may have been "easy" in the past for someone who has kept bees for a
decade or more. But that "experience" was based upon weather patterns that
are now very much a moving target.
Weighing each and every hive on a regular basis allows a novice to see the
future (predict when hives may starve, see when blooms have started and
ended, notice a hive that is not gaining or losing weight along with the
others, and needs a close look...) even if he does not have the benefit of
experience, but more to the point, climate change, El Nino, and La Nina make
"experience" a far less reliable basis for management decisions, as the
seasons are no longer as predictable as one would like.
Since the 1980s, even wine grape harvests have steadily moved earlier and
earlier, and the baseline comparison are the monastery records of harvest
dates going back to the 1300s.
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/23/471622180/study-finds-climate-change-could-be-
leading-to-better-wine
http://tinyurl.com/zubn69c
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