Weighing the hive (continued 9) - The season has started

Wow, as I ended my last weighing the hive post, I was just waiting for a few days warm weather for something to happen. The weather has been great for the past 3 days and now things are happening :o)

The total weight of the hive (corrected for the second box added 3 days ago) look like this.

It is clear that the hive is finally gaining significant weight. It is actually so heavy that lifting it with my suitcase scale has become problematic since lift it with fairly straight arms above elbow level :o). Remember that the straight line is the weight loss during the winter months when the bees were sitting in a cluster. Then a bit of fluctuation when the bees start to breed, and the food was scarce before season really gets started.

Now looking at the weight loss per day which was used to ensure that there was food enough during winter, i.e. an increase in mass is negative. The fluctuations during early spring becomes negligible. Keep in mind that this increase in weight is per day which means that the bees have collected almost 1.6 kg in just one day!! I always weigh the bees in the evening so the point represents a full day's work.

One bee collects a few mg per trip - lets just say 5 mg. So to collect 1.6 kg that represents 320000 trips in one day. Isn't that just mind blowing!

Happy Easter to all