442 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



November 



A RECORDING SCALE 



Details of a Scale Which Records the Changing 



Weight of the Colony, Hour by Hour, 



as the Bees Bring in the Honey 



By Lloyd R. Watson, Apiculturist Texas Experiment Station 



A scale so constructed as automat- 

 ically to I'ecord time and weight is 

 being used at the Texas Agricultural 

 Experiment Station at College Sta- 

 tion, in a series of experiments with 

 bees. The periodical weighing of 

 colonies of bees to determine the loss 

 or gain over a given period, is com- 

 mon among apicultural observers, and 

 a very few more or less crude devices 

 have been employed at one time or 

 another to obtain continuous weight 

 records of colonies of bees. To H. B. 

 Parks, formerly connected with the 

 above institution, is due the credit for 

 devising the instrument, by the use 

 of which exact, continuous, automatic 

 record is being kept of the variations 

 in the weight of a colony of bees. 



A careful survey of available ap- 

 paratus made in the light of the ex- 

 acting requirements of the experi- 

 ment quickly demonstrated that there 

 ^vas nowhere in existence an instru- 

 ment that would answer the purpose. 

 For example, the scale must be able to 

 carry a constant load running as high 

 as 300 pounds. The recording mech- 

 anism must run at least eight days 

 after a single winding, and it must be 

 able to record changes of load within 

 a range of 20 pounds at any point be- 

 tween 50 pounds and 225 pounds 

 every second of the time. The appa- 

 ratus must be housed to protect it 

 from the weather, yet meteorological 

 conditions surrounding the hive on 

 the scales must duplicate as far as 

 possible those surrounding a hive in 

 an open apiary. Therefore the scale 

 must be constructed to withstand for 

 an indefinite period of time the action 

 of the weather, and especially the 

 corroding action of humid air. As the 

 result of much study and after consid- 

 erable correspondence with some of 

 the leading scale manufacturers of 

 the United States and with the United 

 States Bureau of Standards at Wash- 

 ington, D. C, it was decided that the 

 Automatic scale built by the Toledo 

 Scale Company was best adapted to 

 be connected up with a recording 

 clock for this purpose. Julien P. 

 P'riez & Sons, of Baltimore, furnished 

 the eight-day clock, and the same 

 firm was engaged to make to special 

 order the eight-inch revolving drum 

 which was to carry the record chart. 

 Mr. A. H. Emery, a mechanical engi- 

 neer of national reputation in scale 

 construction, residing at Glenbrook, 

 Conn., was employed to construct a 

 super-platform over the dial of the 

 Toledo Scale and to build and mount 

 thereon the system of levers by which 

 the rise and fall of the arm of a lever 

 in the body of the scale should be con- 

 \erted into the sweep of a pen across 

 a moving belt of paper. 



The construction and methods of 



assembly will be better undei'stood 

 from the accompanying photographs. 

 Photo No. 1 shows the complete scale. 

 No. 2 is an enlarged view of the lower 

 lever, and No. 3 is an enlarged view 

 of the upper lever and recording 

 mechanism. It will be seen that mo- 

 tion for actuating the recording 

 mechanism is obtained from an exten- 

 tion to the left of the large lever in 

 the body of the Toledo scale, and at- 

 tachment is made by means of a bolt 

 damping device. A vertical support 



Colony of bees on recording scale 



near the left side of the super-plat- 

 form carries the upper lever over a 

 pair of plate fulcrums. The short 

 end of this upper lever carries a 

 counterpoise weight at its extreme 

 left end and a sensitizing weight 

 above the fulcrum. At the right of 

 the platform another vertical bracket 



carries stops which limit the motion 

 of the lever. The pen lever rotates 

 on a pivot and its short end is in the 

 lorm of an arc which is belted to the 

 upper lever with a steel belt. This 

 arc also has a small weight belted to 

 it to keep the belts taut. The sensi- 

 tizing weight is set so that this whole 

 upper system is as sensitive as possi- 

 ble. In fact, when the steel ribbon 

 which connects the weighing mechan- 

 ir-m with the recording mechanism is 

 disconnected at its lower end, the 

 large counterpoise and the sensitizing 

 weights permit of such delicate ad- 

 justment that the whole upper system 

 of levers is in stable equilibrium, 

 and the pen will rest at any point 

 where it is placed. The least change 

 of load will then move the pen 

 through its whole range of motion. 

 The record drum encloses an eight- 

 day clock which causes it to make 

 nearly a complete revolution in seven 

 days. The pen, pen-arm, journal and 

 bracket were made by Julien P. Friez 

 & Sons, Baltimore, Md. The record 

 chart was designed by the writer. It 

 is ruled with curved lines coinciding 

 with the sweep of the pen, and cor- 

 responds to the 24 hours of the day. 

 Horizontal parallel lines traverse the 

 paper and each line corresponds with 

 one pound change in load. 



The recording scale is mounted 

 upon a solid, one-piece, concrete 

 base and is sheltered in a substan- 

 tially built house patterned after the 

 regulation weather observation shel- 

 ters of the U. S. Weather Bureau. Not 

 oiily can the sides of the house be re- 

 moved at will more nearly to place the 

 bee colony which is under observa- 

 tion, under more normal apiary condi- 

 tions, but the concrete base on which 

 the house stands contains a wing or 

 projection out in front so that the 

 scale can, at the option of the ob- 

 server, be I'olled out from under the 

 roof and into the full light of the 

 sun without the least jarring or shak- 

 ing of the hive. 



IT PAYS TO PROTECT BEES, 

 EVEN IN OPEN WINTERS 



By J. H. Merrill, Apiarist, Kansas 



State Agricultural College and 



Experiment Station 



As has been previously reported in 

 the American Bee Journal and the 

 Journal of Economic Entomology, an 

 experiment has bten going on at the 

 Kansas State Agricultural College for 

 several years to determine the best 

 method of wintering bees. In previ- 

 ous reports it has been shown that a 

 two-story hive is preferable to a one- 

 story hive for wintering, that a wind- 

 break is very valuable, and that the 

 expense of packing hives is more than 

 offset by the resulting increased 

 strength of the colonies. 



In this experiment there are two 

 sols of hives^ — one set placed in the 

 open and the other sheltered by a 

 windbreak of shrubbery. Each set 

 consists of one one-story unpack^'ci 

 hive, one two-story unpacked hive, 

 and one two-story hive packed with 

 leaves. In the fall of the year the 



