Hive Feeding Record
Know what a colony has already been given instead of guessing, and see which hives are repeatedly needing feed when the others are not.
BK-05 1 page
Beekeeping · BK-14
Winter Stores and Weight Check Log
A free printable hive weight record sheet — date, hive, weight or heft, the change since last time, whether anything has been fed and whether the entrance is clear.
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One page. Choose your paper size — both versions are laid out identically, so neither one gets shrunk to fit.
Print it and write on it
Fill it in type and save
The fillable versions have real form fields — open them in any PDF reader, type into them and save. Printing help.
What this sheet is for
Turn a series of guesses about whether a hive feels heavy into a column you can read down, so a colony losing weight quickly is visible before it is in trouble.
Who it is for
Beekeepers of any experience taking colonies through winter, whether they weigh with scales or heft by hand.
How to use it
- Fill in how you are measuring at the top — scales, luggage scale or hefting.
- Check the hives in the same order each time so the lines stay comparable.
- Write the reading and the change since the last visit on the same line.
- Note the entrance and mouse guard while you are there.
- Record what you actually fed on the Hive Feeding Record and cross-refer here.
What is on the sheet
One page, top to bottom:
Printed under the title: The heft or the scale reading for each hive through autumn, winter and into spring, written in a line at a time so this week's weight can be read against the last three.
Your figure, the trend here. No target weight is printed here, because it depends on your hive type, your bees and your winter. Use your own figure — or your own hand, if you heft rather than weigh — and let the column of readings show you the direction of travel. What you then fed belongs on the Hive Feeding Record.
Write-on lines: Apiary · Winter of · Hive type / weighed how
Weight checks — one line per hive per check
Table, 12 rows: Date · Hive · Weight · Change · Heft · Fed since · Entrance · Notes
Questions
Why is there no minimum winter weight on the sheet?
Because it depends on your hive type, your bees, your climate and how long your winter is, and a printed figure would be wrong for most beekeepers using it. Use the figure you work to, and let the column show you which way a hive is going.
Is hefting good enough, or do I need scales?
Both work on this sheet. Hefting gives you a rough judgement in a word, scales give you a number; either becomes useful once there is a run of them for the same hive, because it is the change between visits that tells you something.
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