2020 · September 28, 2020
After a long summer the bees now experience the first cool autumn days. After the bee colonies were fed for the winter, and during the last weeks enough winter bees have been hatched, they stop now the brood activity and change over to the energy-saving winter mode. This can be clearly seen from the temperature curve in the brood chamber: If the bees kept the brood-room temperature constantly since the spring on somewhat over 30°C, it drops now on only scarcely over 20°C (yellow curve).
2020 · June 05, 2020
The spring season is over, so that the bees were only able to bring in a little nectar during the last days. However, a sticky layer of honeydew has formed on the leaves of some lime trees in the neighbourhood, which the bees could not absorb due to the extremely dry weather. After it rained a little at night, the bees were finally able to collect the diluted honeydew from the leaves yesterday. This is very nice to see from the weight of the hive scale, on which a colony of only medium strength...
2020 · April 21, 2020
As of today, not only the temperature in the middle of the breeding chamber is displayed on the page with the live data of the hivescale, but also the temperatures in each of the 11 comb gaps. So you can see how big the breeding nest is at the moment, which should be especially interesting during the cold season.
2020 · April 10, 2020
The honey rooms have been on the colonies for three weeks. This week the cherry and apple blossoms began. The hivescale now shows daily weight increases again, nice to see in the diagrams. It is always fascinating to see how quickly it starts after the winter and how nature explodes. The temperature curves are also particularly interesting: since 21 March, the date of the equinox, the temperature in the brood chamber has been maintained by the bees at exactly 35°C (yellow curve), with a...
2019 · June 18, 2019
After the spring was a total failure in terms of honey, it is now buzzing heavily in the lime trees in Heilbronn's city centre, and the hivescale shows daily weight increases of almost 2 kg.
2019 · May 26, 2019
HoneyPi is a smart beehive scale for do-it-yourself construction, based on the single-board computer "Raspberry Pi". Sensors measure the weight of the beehive as well as other variables such as temperature, humidity and air pressure and can be visualized live on the Internet, e.g. on a smartphone. At defined events, e.g. a swarm exit, a message is sent to the smartphone. This IoT ("Internet of Things") device is an open-source project, so that the system can be flexibly expanded as required,...
2018 · May 03, 2018
The bees are diligent, the weather is fine. Soon the spring crop will be harvested :-)
2018 · January 28, 2018
From time to time, the garden beekeeper weighs his hives and estimates the amount of food. This shows that the stocks at the end of January are quite scarce with about 4 to 7 kg per colony, which is probably also due to the mild winter. At the moment one colony consumes about 0.5kg of food per week. This can be read in a diagram. The kink at the end of December results from a transfer of food honeycombs to balance the reserves between the colonies. The food consumption will soon increase...
2015 · April 24, 2015
If you weigh a colony of bees and subtract the weight of the hive (wooden box, frames, wax, pollen and bees), the difference is an estimate of the amount of food or honey stored. Observing the progression of the feed/honey weight over time, the following phases can be seen: