>We had to heft the benchmark "hive" periodically, though, because after a series of light or heavy hives our mental calibration would be off.

I use the Grunt method - if hefting the hive makes you grunt then it is heavy enough to overwinter!

I also estimate weights when bringing in honey - as I take off each super I estimate the weight - and very conveniently my wife keeps the records.

I then extract an apiary at a time and check the total weight against my estimates.  Usually I am very accurate - the only thing that catches me out is a super with a lot of pollen in it.  Records are then adjusted up or down accordingly (records are on an Excel spreadsheet) and hives scored 1 to 5 for their productivity against the apiary - but where a queen has been superseded then it may be necessary to estimate the honey produced from the offspring of the current queen as opposed to that from her mother and then allocate the crop appropriately.  May sound a bit fiddly, but in practise it is quite easy and quick to do with computerised records.  When evaluating queens for breeding this gives very useful information.

Best wishes

Peter

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